Michael Jackson - Moonwalk Montage
Moonwalk (dance)
The moonwalk became popular around the world following Michael Jackson's moonwalk during the performance of "Billie Jean" on Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever, which was broadcast on May 16, 1983. He would go on to include it during tours and live performances. Jackson has been credited as renaming the "backslide" to the moonwalk and it became his signature move.
Technique
An illusion is involved in creating a the appearance of the dancer gliding backwards. Initially, the front foot is held flat on the ground, while the back foot is in a tiptoe position. The flat front foot remains on the ground but is slid lightly and smoothly backward past the tip-toe back foot. What is now the front foot is lowered flat, while the back foot is raised into the tiptoe position. These steps are repeated over and over creating the illusion that the dancer is being pulled backwards by an unseen force while trying to walk forward. Variations of this move allow moonwalking to appear to glide forward, sideways, or even in a circle.
History
1930s
There are many recorded instances of the moonwalk; similar steps are reported as far back as 1932, used by Cab Calloway. In 1985, Calloway said that the move was called "The Buzz" when he and others performed it in the 1930s.
1943-1944
In 1943, Bill Bailey performed the first Backslide on screen in the movie The Cabin in the Sky. This dance move most closely resembles the renamed Moonwalk.1944, Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien featured something like 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.
1950s and 1960s
In the 1950, Dick Van Dyke performed a similar variation of the moonwalk and camel walk in his comedy routine called "Mailing A Letter On A Windy Corner".
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. 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.
In 1958, Mexican dancer-comedian Adalberto Martinez "Resortes" also performed the moonwalk in the film Colegio de Verano (Summer School).
In 1965, David Ruffin performs the moonwalk while singing "My Girl" on American Bandstand.
In a November 1969 episode of H.R. Pufnstuf, Judy the Frog teaches everyone a new dance called "The Moonwalk", which includes two instances of a stationary moonwalk.
1970s
In 1972, Lucie Arnaz in Here's Lucy Episode 9 of Season 5 "Lucy and Jim Bailey" Lucie does the Moonwalk while singing "Fever" with Jim Bailey
Choreographer Bob Fosse moonwalks in his role as the Snake in the 1974 film The Little Prince.
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.
It has also a been acknowledged that the professional wrestlers Michael "Pure 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.
1980s
James Brown used the move. In 1981 in the promotional single and music video Crosseyed and Painless by new wave band Talking Heads, authentic street dancers, picked by David Byrne, are featuring, including Stephen "Skeeter Rabbit" Nichols doing the moonwalk. It reached to 20 on the US dance charts.
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 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.
Also in 1982, Debbie Allen performs a moonwalk during a scene with Gwen Verdon in Season 1, Episode 10 ("Come One, Come All") of the TV series Fame.
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".
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".