Michael Jackson Walking On The Moon
Margit Szermer
The moonwalk, or backslide, is a popping dance move in which the performer glides backwards but their body actions suggest forward motion.[1] It became popular around the world when Michael Jackson performed the move during the performance of "Billie Jean" on Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever, which was broadcast in 1983. He included the moonwalk in tours and live performances.[2] Jackson has been credited as renaming the "backslide" to the moonwalk and it became his signature move.[3][4][5]
Holman (2004) identified early evidence for the moonwalk in a statement made by Arthur Marshall, who was an African American composer of ragtime music.[6] Marshall stated, "If a guy could really do it, he sometimes looked as if he was being towed around on ice skates. The performer moves forward without appearing to move his feet at all by manipulating his toes and heels rapidly."[6][7]
There are many recorded instances of the moonwalk; similar steps are reported as far back as 1932, used by Cab Calloway and Charlie Chaplin.[8] In 1985, Calloway said that the move was called "The Buzz" when he and others performed it in the 1930s.[9][10]
The 1935 animated short film Dancing on the Moon, directed by Dave Fleischer and part of the Color Classics series of animated short films, contains a segment where the protagonist cat dances the moonwalk.
In 1943, Bill Bailey performed the first on-screen backslide in the movie The Cabin in the Sky. This dance move closely resembles what was later called the moonwalk. In 1944, Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien portrayed something similar to the move in their performance of "Under the Bamboo Tree" in Meet Me in St. Louis, though their performance lacks the illusion created by the genuine moonwalk.[11]
In 1955, it was recorded in a performance by tap dancer Bill Bailey. He performs a tap routine, and at the end, backslides into the wings.[12] The French mime artist Marcel Marceau used it throughout his career (from the 1940s through the 1980s), as part of the drama of his mime routines. In Marceau's "Walking Against the Wind" routine, he pretends to be pushed backwards by a gust of wind.[13]
On the April 9, 1970 episode of The Dick Cavett Show, Marcel Marceau demonstrated several kinds of "mime walks", one of which was a backslide. Cavett tried to do it himself but found it too difficult.
In the late 1970s, the long-running African-American TV dance show Soul Train featured a dance troupe called "The Electric Boogaloos" which routinely performed popping and locking dance moves including the moonwalk.[15]
It has also been acknowledged that the professional wrestlers Michael "Purely Sexy" Hayes, Terry Gordy, and Buddy Roberts started doing the moonwalk as their trademark ring entrance by 1979 when they formed a wrestling stable known as The Fabulous Freebirds.[16]
In 1980, in the music video for their single "One Step Ahead" by New Zealand rock band Split Enz, keyboardist Eddie Rayner is seen performing a predecessor of the moonwalk, and Nigel Griggs (former bassist for Split Enz) allegedly taught him how to perform it.
Another early moonwalker was popper and singer Jeffrey Daniel, who moonwalked in a performance of Shalamar's "A Night to Remember" on Top of the Pops in the UK in 1982[19] and was known to perform backslides in public performances (including weekly Soul Train episodes) as far back as 1974. Michael Jackson was a fan of Jeffrey Daniel's dancing and would eventually seek him out.
In Flashdance, the move was used in the B-boy scene, where Rock Steady Crew's Mr. Freeze (Marc Lemberger), with an umbrella prop, mimed the wind blowing him backward as he first walks forward, fighting the wind, then starts moonwalking backwards. Mr. Freeze's version was also shown in the first hip hop movie Wild Style and Malcolm McLaren film clip "Buffalo Gals".[21]
In the 1984 movie Streets of Fire, actor and performer Stoney Jackson executed a moonwalk as the leader of a fictional group, The Sorels, who lip-synced to the Dan Hartman song "I Can Dream About You". The movie was filmed in the northern spring of 1983, also predating the iconic Michael Jackson moonwalk.
Singer Bobby Brown of New Edition was the one of "three kids" Jackson said taught him the dance step in his autobiography, Moonwalk.[23] It had been rumored that Jeffrey Daniel taught Jackson the moonwalk, however, Daniel was touring with Shalamar at the time, so Jackson reached out to Soul Train dancer/employee Cheryl Song to arrange a meeting with dancer Geron "Caszper" Canidate. At this point, Ron Wiesner Jackson's management contacted Caszper to arrange private dance lessons for Jackson in June 1981. Caszper, who claims to have a copy of the check and original contract, spent one week privately instructing Jackson how to perform the moonwalk.[citation needed] Jackson first performed the dance in public on March 25, 1983 during the television special, Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever,[24] in front of a live audience at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. The dance became world-famous two months later when the show made its television premiere. Dressed in his signature black trousers, silver socks, silver shirt, black-sequined jacket, and rhinestoned glove, Jackson spun around, posed, and began moonwalking. Music critic Ian Inglis later wrote that Jackson encapsulated a long tradition of African-American dance movements in that one performance.[17] Moonwalking received widespread attention, and from then on, the moonwalk became Jackson's signature move for his song "Billie Jean". Nelson George said that Jackson's rendition "combined Jackie Wilson's athleticism with James Brown's camel walk". Following the Motown 25 special, Jackson contacted Daniel to further master the technique once Daniel returned from tour.[citation needed]
Alexei Kovalev has been known for using the moonwalk in his National Hockey League career.[25] He performed the move after scoring a goal on February 7, 2001, and on January 3, 2010. Kovalev moonwalked onto the ice after being named one of the stars of the game and again after scoring in a 2008 celebrity charity soccer game. In 2009, R&B singer The-Dream teamed up with Kanye West to create the synth-pop-R&B record "Walkin' on the Moon", in which The-Dream includes a Jackson-inspired high note. The music video does not feature the moonwalk, though it plays on the premise with a CGI moon background and a simple 2-step by the singer to give the impression he is "walkin' on the moon".[26]
Michael Jackson is really more my children's generation than mine.
He was a cute kid whose talent I always admired and continued to admire as he morphed into the glove wielding, moon walking phenom that he became.
But I'll say this for MJ:
He was the star of the best concert I ever saw in my entire life. And that's saying something.
It was lucky for me that a pair of tickets landed in my boss' hands for the taping of Motown 25 at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on March 25, 1983. And my boss couldn't go.
He gave them to me and just like that, me and my girlfriend (now wife) wound up on the 4th or 5th row, dead-center orchestra level for what was the greatest collection of Motown royalty ever assembled in one show.
The line up included Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, a battle between The Temptations and The Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Ashford and Simpson, Marvin Gaye, The Jackson 5 reunion and, of course, Michael himself, who brought the house down with his "Billie Jean" inspired Moonwalk and tossing his hat across stage.
It was electrifying to see, especially that close up.
There was no looking back for Michael Jackson, or for us, after that still indescribable performance. The TV show that aired 2 months later cut a few moments from the actual taping here and there (like the fight between Diana Ross and Mary Wilson over the microphone), but no matter, Michael the superstar was born that night.
On Friday's program, I asked Shaye Areheart, co-editor of Michael Jackson's autobiography Moon Walk, if she thinks the public has forgiven him or just turned a blind eye to his alleged dark side, opting instead to celebrate Michael's life and music.
"He was found innocent," she said matter-of-factly.
Yes, he was vindicated in a court of law. But in the court of public opinion, it never really mattered.
In the year since his death, MJ's music, memorabilia, and films have generated a billion dollars in revenue according to Billboard. That's incredible.
I don't own a Michael Jackson poster and I have some, though not a lot, of his music. And yet, I owe him a debt of gratitude for the memory of that very special concert that spring night in Pasadena. It is still vivid, 27 years later. I can hear it, feel it, see it.
And he was the star.
With apologies to Michael Jackson, when NASA sends the first astronauts to explore near the lunar South Pole, moonwalkers will wear spacesuits provided by Axiom Space. NASA selected the company to develop the modern suits for the Artemis III mission and participated in activities when the first prototype was revealed Wednesday during an event at Space Center Houston in Texas.
Helping take a step forward in the agency's goal to build a robust economy at the Moon by working with commercial service providers, Axiom Space hosted the event for students and media to ask questions and get a close-up look at the spacesuit.
NASA chose to use a commercial services contract for development of the new spacesuit, whereby NASA purchases moonwalking services from Axiom Space. Under this model, the company is encouraged to pursue other commercial customers for their moonwalking services. This mutually beneficial approach helps bolster an emerging commercial market and grants NASA the right to use the data and technologies developed under the contract for future exploration efforts.
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