![]() He had first seen the backslide done a few years earlier by none other than Jeffrey Daniel, who in addition to being a "Solid Gold" dancer, was also a choreographer and member of a band called Shalamar. This does make it sound like the moonwalk just sort of sprung from Michael's brain, but in actuality, Jackson didn't choreograph his dances by himself most of the time - he used choreographers. The moonwalk became such a part of Michael Jackson's life that he named his 1988 autobiography "Moonwalk" and released a movie in the same year titled "Moonwalker." However, Jackson always claimed that the media, not he, dubbed the dance "the moonwalk." Jackson claims in Moonwalk" that up until the night before his appearance on the "Motown 25" special, he hadn't even decided on the exact dance moves that he would use during his performance of "Billie Jean." He says that he turned on the song and "let the dance create itself". Mime influenced dance styles like popping. Mime artist and actor Jean-Louis Barrault performed the airwalk in the 1945 film "Les Enfants du Paradis." Shields and Yarnell, an American mime duo in the 1970s who briefly had their own variety show, also incorporated the airwalk into their repertoire. So where does mime come in? There's a stationary version of the same kind of gliding step that is commonly used in mime, most notably by Marcel Marceau in his famous "Walking Against the Wind" routine first done in the 1930s, known as the airwalk. Tap dancer Bill Bailey's sliding backstep in 1955, however, was really the first to truly look like what we think of as the moonwalk. There was also a popular ragtime dance in the same era called "The Camel Walk," which is a forward, zigzag dance step that also requires the dancer to drag his feet. Calloway called it "The Buzz," but it was jerkier than and not as floaty as the modern moonwalk. However, the earliest footage of someone performing a sliding, backward dance step that looks something like the moonwalk comes from the 1930s short films of Cab Calloway, a jazz and big bandleader. There's no way to pinpoint exactly where the moonwalk came from, as dances tend to evolve and build upon previous ones. And while it may seem impossible, anybody can do it - with a lot of practice. Michael didn't invent it he just made it his own and made it a sensation. However, this dance step had existed in one form or another for at least 50 years before he set foot on that stage in 1983. Michael was such a trendsetter in the entertainment world, so it makes sense to conclude that the moonwalk was just another creation of his. That's why any performance of the moonwalk (no matter who does it) tends to draw an appreciative crowd. Swinging arms and neck jerks help cement the illusion, which is very smooth and convincing when performed by a skilled dancer. If you're not familiar with the moonwalk, it's a dance step in which the dancer looks like he or she's walking forward but being pulled backward. Even if you didn't see the debut, you doubtless saw Jackson perform the moonwalk numerous times afterward, because it became his signature dance move. If you were a child of the 1980s, you were probably talking to your friends the next day about what you'd seen - and trying to replicate Jackson's moves. During his performance of "Billie Jean," Michael Jackson debuted the moonwalk. If you were sitting in front of your TV on May 16, 1983, and watching the NBC special "Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, and Forever," you witnessed something truly amazing. Short, black pants showing off sparkly socks.
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