{"id":9472,"date":"2009-06-29T06:17:18","date_gmt":"2009-06-29T10:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9472"},"modified":"2010-07-22T08:08:48","modified_gmt":"2010-07-22T12:08:48","slug":"michael-jackson-the-dancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9472","title":{"rendered":"Michael Jackson, the dancer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/06\/27\/arts\/music\/27assess.html\">A really thoughtful analysis<\/a> in the NY Times.  Here&#8217;s just an excerpt, but I highly recommend you read the whole thing:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>There are few popular dancers today who keep drawing your attention to footwork: He was always one of them. Here in \u00e2\u0080\u009cBillie Jean\u00e2\u0080\u009d he turns the feet in and out; he raises right and left feet in alternation; he isolates the action of one leg and then the other; he goes rhythmically knock-kneed: It\u00e2\u0080\u0099s riveting. Later, when he jumps and stamps, those moves are dance effects, always part of the rhythm. And meanwhile, until late in the song, he never stops mouthing the lyrics. He\u00e2\u0080\u0099s always intense, and still occasionally vulnerable. The spring he can get out of those feet is very exciting: you can see how much impetus he gets out of them \u00e2\u0080\u0094 turning in and out, they sometimes propel him backward \u00e2\u0080\u0094 which is just a foretaste of what\u00e2\u0080\u0099s to follow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Clip below the jump of Michael Jackson performing &#8220;Billie Jean&#8221; in 1983 at Motown 25.  I remember seeing that show.  I remember everyone talking about the moonwalk at school the next day, gobsmacked, &#8220;did you see that??&#8221; &#8211; people trying it in the corner of the cafeteria.  Hard to imagine yourself back into that time, what with who Michael Jackson eventually became, not to imagine how much the moonwalk is imitated, mocked, whatever.  But it is an electrifying performance &#8211; if you just watch <i>what the hell he is doing with his body<\/i>, in every second.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\n<object width=\"640\" height=\"505\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/BHtSzGN2wL4&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/BHtSzGN2wL4&#038;hl=en&#038;fs=1&#038;\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"640\" height=\"505\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A really thoughtful analysis in the NY Times. Here&#8217;s just an excerpt, but I highly recommend you read the whole thing: There are few popular dancers today who keep drawing your attention to footwork: He was always one of them. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=9472\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[1546],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9472"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24621,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9472\/revisions\/24621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}