If I Can’t Moonwalk By The End, What Was The Point? or:

Michael Jackson & The Communal Nature of Dance

I like to think I can dance. I mean, I think I can move my feet or hips or hands in time, close enough, to whatever is playing better than most of my contemporaries. This may be incorrect, but I’ve spent enough time alone in my room, or in my living room, listening to whatever is at the top of my mind to make myself believe this. And I like dancing in front of others, or rather, with others.

I can’t think of anything more romantic than dance, than holding onto one another with a soundtrack. I can’t think of anything more romantic than a song bursting through speakers, loud enough for two people to hear, and strong enough to make them both move.

One thing Michael Jackson was always incredible at was music videos. I don’t know how involved the guy was in the conception of said videos, though knowing his work, and moreover his work ethic, I’m sure he knew and made sure his input was heard on every detail, so I’m sure it was him that knew almost every video needed to have a breakdown for a dance. The most obvious ones will come to mind first, Smooth Criminal, and Bad, and probably most famously Thriller, but the one that sticks out for me, more than anything, is Remember The Time.

Remember The Time is off of Michael Jackson’s 1991 album Dangerous. The video stars Imaan, Eddie Murphy, Magic Johnson & was directed by John Singleton (Boyz N The Hood, Poetic Justice). The song itself is three minutes long, which is curious because, somehow, the video is nine. The song itself doesn’t actually start until the three and a half minute mark, when Jackson comes onto screen for the first time (yes! he doesn’t appear in his own music video for three and a half minutes!) and as we get to the sixth the song breaks down completely, to make room for a 2 and a half minute dance number!

The dance number itself is one of the best from Jackson’s videos. There’s about twenty people, who make their way onto screen and begin, perfectly in sync, all leading to a moment where each person twirls into a couple, and the second half of the dance number ensues. Their arms link and move to make way for one another’s heads and bodies and even Michael, this time, has someone to dance with. For a moment, there is an unparalleled synchronicity. Each couple becomes one being, dancing both with and through each other. And I believe, even if you can’t dance like Michael (which I don’t think anyone can), that this is what dancing is for.

There’s a moment in the You Rock My World video that I remember more than anything. When Jackson & his dance partner, in this instance Kiyasha Dudley, begin to actually dance together, through people playing poker and diners at tables, and Jackson, at the end, raises his shoulders up to his head, leans forward, clenches his fists and moves, swiping and moving his body’s position in time to the song. This, in all its glory and suave nature, is what most people held onto in this video. I think it spawned from the Michael Jackson Experience, the computer game from 2010, a game I got for christmas that year, where you get to finally dance just like Michael, but I guarantee you that when the song plays at a party, you will find people moving as close as they can to emulate.

Once again, this video is thirteen minutes long, for a five minute song, which is around the same as Remember The Time once adjusted for inflation. It’s a similar concept of video to most of Jackson’s, there’s a really fine girl and Michael is simply the smoothest guy of all time, even in his fedora & two piece suit with a salmon shirt, because he can dance.

Friends, I am not Michael Jackson, but you will definitely see me move in the closest form I can muster if given the opportunity.

I only like clubs and I only like parties if the music is good, because there is nothing I love more than community. I love being a part of people who all feel the same in a specific moment, who all react the same when the song fades and a new one comes on, when Azealia Banks finally shouts “What you gon’ do when I appear?” (happy pride month btw).

In 1983, Michael Jackson debuted his version of the moonwalk for the first time, whilst performing Billie Jean. He hadn’t invented the move, that was Bill Bailey in the 1940s, but everyone in the audience screamed as he did it. There is an audible gasp, and everyone around is standing and clapping along to the song. Jackson cried when he got off stage that night, simply because he felt the performance wasn’t good enough, but what I will say now is he created a moment where every person in that theatre, all of those who cared to watch, were one. Community will always exist, whether you’re dancing yourself or just watching someone kill it, and that’s what that moment is.

Remember The Time is the first music video I ever remember seeing, and I will dance to it for as long as my body still works and as the space for me to do so exists.