Al César lo que es del César... O a los Césares, en este caso. Un observador usuario de YouTube nos pone sobre la pista de los orígenes del "Moonwalk", ese fluido andar para atrás que popularizó Michael Jackson. Y no, el vídeo nada tiene que ver con la muy sonada muerte del coronado "rey del pop"; lleva ahí colgado exactamente un año.
"As some people already know, a dance move called the moonwalk (a.k.a. backslide) had been existed before it became the "moonwalk". The video features the ancient moonwalkers and other greats who possibly influenced MJ's style of dancing.
The most well-known dancer as the "orignal moonwalker" should be Bill Bailey who performed it in the film 'Showtime At The Apollo' (1955), which was also featured in the movie 'Tap' (1989). But actually Bill Bailey, pupil of Bill Robinson, performed the very same step as early as 1943 in the movie 'Cabin In The Sky', which you can see here as well as the 1955 film.
The various scenes used in the video are from 1929 to 1955 (except Sammy Davis Jr. from '65 and '67). The oldest one is from 'Hallelujah', featuring Daniel L. Haynes as a minister pantomiming a train at a prayer meeting. I was totally amazed by his movement when I first saw that movie.
The most influential dancer on MJ's dancing is no doubt James Brown, but you can also trace the roots and origins of his style to those greats in the first half of the 20th century.
So, the question - "who devised the moonwalk?".
My answer is "nobody". Or all the great imaginative dancers, including MJ, who made great efforts to move foward (should I say "backward" in this case?). I think the moonwalk is not a thing someone suddenly came up with one day. There must have been so many great unknown dancers other than the ones who were lucky to be recorded... In other words, Rome was not built in a day".
Más fuentes de inspiración. Ese mismo usuario, sabedor de las generosas cuotas de homenaje que encerraba el celebérrimo clip de "Smooth Criminal", ha decidido tirar de tijera e hilo digital para poner a bailar a los Fred Astaire y Cyd Charisse de "Girl Hunt ballet in The Band Wagon" (1953) al ritmo de esa misma canción. Vean.
Cerrando círculos y en cierto modo mashupeando varios de los post aparecidos en estas páginas durante estos últimos días, CFJ también reeditaba hace un año partes del metraje de "West Side Story" haciendo que Sharks y Jets se batan ahora el cobre al compás de "Beat It" y "Bad". Lo clava.
