Michael Jackson's This is It

To appreciate Michael Jackson’s artistry in THIS IS IT , you only need to compare and contrast it with the “classic” Michael Jackson on earlier tours. With each tour it seems to me his body projects a certain attribute of the elements: water, air, earth, fire.

Bad Tour

On the Bad Tour, it’s as if he’s walking on water, smooth and fluid. Here’s the famous circle-sliding on BJ from Yokohama 1987 at 5:39


And here’s a move that’s rare, a kind of forward glide on Bad at Wembley 1987 at 3:45)

It’s all about illusionistic steps.

Dangerous Tour
On the Dangerous Tour, he’s aerial, he’s got this balletic thing going, long lines and poses, graceful progressions from one move to another, very refined, very clean. Watch how he can make a street move like the slide glide seem so “classical” on Jam, Mexico City 1993 (2:52): And here on SC in Bucharest at 4:46, watch the rapid-fire leg movement before settles on that hat-point pose; very Astaire-like: And, how does he get on and off stage? Leaping in, flying out.

HIStory Tour
On the HIStory Tour, he lands to earth (in a space shuttle, of course). The dancing is earthier, harder edged, robotic. He’s not going for gracefulness but projecting anger (much more than usual).

Watch how he pops his shoulders here at 1:21 in Hawaii (1:21):



And again how he locks in Manila at 2:45 to 2:50:


The dancing is crisp, aggressive, and very street.

This is It
On THIS IS IT , I think the element he’s projecting is fire. The show was to begin with electrical disturbances (as Ortega explains on the outtakes), and fire was a major component of the show – the jacket in BI was going be on fire, the bed in Dirty Diana was going to be on fire. And why does Michael Jackson using these fiery metaphors of simmering and sizzling? On THIS IS IT every old move is given an extra shock (or a new electrical twitch if you prefer).

Let’s compare the same moves and how they’re different in THIS IS IT .

TWYMMF

TWYMMF at MSG 2001, 0:53 to 1:00 Now this is classic MJ, especially 0:56 to 0:59 – clean, sharp legs, on the beat shoulder pops, slow, well-rounded, gyrating hips.

Now watch 0:55 to 1:00 on THIS IS IT here His legs seem to spasm and shuffle unsteadily, barely keeping to the drum snaps, the shoulder pops are jerkier, less pronounced, and seem to just peter out instead of repeating one after the other, and instead of an obviously sexual move such as rotating hips, he does this really quirky bird-like pecking/puppet movement at 1:13. The whole thing is less about doing moves than projecting an urgency that is as naughty as it is raunchy. He’s having fun, with the rhythm, with the song, and with his own crotch-grabbing image.

Smooth Criminal

Watch SC in Munich 1997 from 2:10 to 2:18. This is so lyrical, voluptuous, luxuriously effortless, everything done without a hair falling out of place, pure sprezzatura.

On SC on THIS IS IT , you get a snappier, more raw, rougher kind of poetry. Here it’s not about being lyrical, but being dramatic, more theatrical, with little gestures and ticks and stops and starts. Watch 2:28 to 2:38, the exact same point in the song as in the Munich example



His hands are furiously gesticulating with epileptic fury at some nameless, unseen intruder, and then the little lilting limp he does from 2:35 to 2:37 as if doing an imitation of stalking Annie, and then the ominously reptile-like walk and pointing gesture at 2:42. All more theatre than “pure dance” but it captures perfectly the dark mood of the song. None of these little moves are big “steps” but they’re harder to do, because it’s easy to imitate a dance move, but less easy to embody nervous energy.

It’s as if, as in a scientific equation, he’s changing all his mass and muscles that once executed dance steps into neurons that are channeling pure energy and electrical charge.

WBSS


One final comparison. WBSS Brunei 1996, from 1:37 to 1:42, he does the sidewalk and the arm wave.


Very funky, very street, on the beat.

Now THIS IS IT , 0:22 to 0:30. Same moves—sidewalk and the arm wave Sure it’s f.u.n.k.i.e.r. But he’s not sliding on the stage, he’s slithering, serpent-like, seemingly unsteadily, with a herky-jerky precision that I have never seen on any dancer. Just watch that arm wave at 0:27 and how seamlessly it leads to the next one, and then another little twitch of an arm wave. All within less than seconds.

When This is It released some fans noticed a "twitchiness" in the way Michael Jackson moved, and fitting facts to theory, assumed that this was owing to ring rust, nervous anxiety, or medication woes. But if you watch carefully what Michael Jackson is doing, you'll discover that he's actually improvising a whole new dancing style on-the-spot.

Dancing interprets the music, and it is, in most dance forms, rhythmic, i.e., matching the beat, hitting the spots, grooving to the feel of the music.

But if you watch what Michael Jackson is doing, he’s not matching the beat, he’s dividing it. This is what musicians call syncopation; but here it’s the body that’s syncopating. His moves come in between the beats.

Watch his sidewalks; they’re so jagged and slippery at the same time. The sidewalk is actually an easy move – when it’s on the beat. But not in the way he’s doing it here, because you never know at what speed point the next “twitch” of the leg is going to come.

WBSS

Watch this on WBSS. Watch the sidewalk at 0:23, followed by the arm wave at 0:27. It’s done so carelessly, almost off-hand, with a flexibility that’s breathtaking.

But where’s the beat? The beat’s in his body. It’s as if you can’t hear the music alone; you need to watch him move to complete what the drums and the rhythm guitars are doing. This is what the Dutch dancer on This is It said in the outtakes, if you just watch his body move, you can infer the music. But the sidewalk is one his big moves. This is It is full of “little” movements, “his stop-on-a-dime spins, deft footwork and body jerks”, as Nekesa Mumbi Moody writing for the Associated Press puts it. Watch the little body twitch he does at 0:37. I love how Rob Harvilla writing for the Village Voice said, ‘["Wanna Be Startin' Somethin"] with his whole body in constant, mesmerizing motion, an endless fusillade of micro-Moonwalks it doesn't seem like he could control even if he wanted them to.’

What some people saw as his twitchiness is actually precision taken to the next level. But it’s precision that’s never rhythmic, in the sense that it happens where you least expect it. And critics noticed this. Here’s Kevin Maher for Times Online, “While even when standing still Jackson has the charismatic mien of an instinctive dancer, one whose body posture suggests that a rhythmic leg-twist, a head-nod, or a hip-flick is only seconds away.” Seconds away, but you can never predict it. On earlier tours his routines were so choreographed that you always knew, with some degree of accuracy, where he was going go with his body (the exceptions are some performances of WBSS and SIM on the HIStory Tour).

TDCAU

On the TDCAU drill this is taken even further. Check out that elbow twitch at 0:21:



Then take it apart, frame by frame, and watch that lightning-quick head movement at about 0:24. Now try an exercise – try tapping to the beat. Where is it? You might get a pulse, but one which is constantly interrupted. And then try dancing to it – frame by frame, body twitch by body twitch.

Human Nature

Now take Human Nature. His voice is urgent, propulsive, always pushing ahead of the beat. Now watch the spin at 1:44. On the beat? And now watch the arm waves that come at the end from 3:52 to 3:55: It’s not keeping to any rhythm that the band is playing; it comes with lightning quickness, abrupt, angular, keeping to a time that none of us can hear, measures that are playing only in his head.

This is what Roger Ebert said of it: “His choreography, built from such precise, abrupt and perfectly-timed movements, is exhausting, but he never shows a sign of tiring. His movements are so well synchronized with the other dancers on stage, who are much younger and highly-trained, that he seems one with them. This is a man in such command of his physical instrument that he makes spinning in place seem as natural as blinking his eye.”

What kind of dancing is this? In it percussive unpredictability, twitchy precision, ragged lines, and “anomalous grace” (Ann Powers’ phrase), this is more akin to tap dancing or marionette movements than to hip-hop. This is not dancing to the beat, but dancing to micro- beats. The marionette thing is important here, and people, again, noticed: Owen Gleiberman for the Entertainment Weekly spoke of his “herky-jerky demon-marionette grace”.

TWYMMF

On TWYMMF, why do you think he’s trying so hard to get the slightly pig-headed Michael Bearded to get the syncopation just right—a little bit of drag, a little behind the beat, like you’re dragging yourself out of bed. It’s all about beating the beat – either going ahead or behind, but never predictable toe-tapping stuff. Watch the leg spasms he does at 0:57 here, and how independent they seem of Jonathan Moffet’s predictable drum snaps.



And, when you see him do that lovely thing at 0:21 here, you get the point. And notice how his feet immediately afterward are tapping slightly ahead of the beat.



His movements on earlier tours used to be big, occupying space, sliding and soaring across the stage—here they are on-the-spot jitters, sizzles, and cracks that are so quick that you have watch frame by frame.

Billie Jean

With Billie Jean, this kind of syncopated movement is taken to its extreme. Watch that entire performance again, but watch only his feet (as hard as it might be, ignore the crotch, please—for now). Watch how they’re marking the beat. Then watch this wave at 2:03 here. It’s the least predictable thing to do at that moment, but when he does it, it makes sense, because the waves in his body go crotchward as the chorus sings the phrase “in the round”. The critic for HitFlix says: ‘during "Billie Jean," Michael seems to snap into focus, his dancing almost like an involuntary reaction to the song.’ The operative word here is involuntary. His movements here are, seemingly, intuitive, where they were once carefully rehearsed and thought out. This is why Travis Payne called him the greatest improvisational dancer.

Michael Phillips, writing for the Baltimore Sun, wrote, “He was the only entertainer who, within four bars, could do the mashed potato followed by the moonwalk followed by seven other moves that never really had a name.” But it's not that he could do them, it's how he did them.

No dancer teacher would ever encourage this kind of a style. My dance instructor always tells me to hit the spots, hit the lines, make it big, and keep it sharp. But MJ’s been there and done that, and he’s gone beyond.



I can only call his style on THIS IS IT a kind of sloppy perfection, incredibly flexible, maddeningly hard to imitate, and mind-blowingly erotic.

And, eroticism brings me to my final point.

Billie Jean

That famous crotch grab at 5:58 here; it’s not slow motion, it’s breaking the crotch on the beat (as weird as that sounds), it’s like he’s got a thing going with his crotch that controlling the beat and slowing it down. The drum beat goes on steadily, but his crotch isn’t matching it; it’s moving to a kind of counter-rhythm so that when you watch it it’s two different rhythms happening at the same time, which slows down the moment. Now where else do counter-rhythms happen—making love. Would you want to make love with only one motion? So you move in different rhythms to move to the big moment. And Michael Jackson’s simulated L.O.V.E., where the drum and his body are in a kind of spastic dance of eroticism, uses this rhythmic complexity to add to the hypnotic effect of the moment. My favourite quote about his dancing on THIS IS IT comes from Peter Travers for the Rolling Stone, "Death holds no sway over Michael Jackson. His soul is still dancing."