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Was MJ a "Technical" Dancer?

Snowbunny Sorcerer

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Years ago, I stumbled across and article of dancer outside the entertainment business that didn't think MJ was a "technical" dancer like the likes of Astaire, Kelly or Baryshnikov.

What I didn't understand was he never once defined what he meant by "technical?"

The floor is yours guys...
 
MJ is by far the best dancer, the precision of his movements, rhythm, the body isolation, body lines are all perfect. I have not seen anyone execute dance moves with such effortlessness and perfection.
That said, as far as I have read, he never had any formal dance training. Dance was just magically in his body. Maybe that's what these people mean by technical dancer, being able to execute the specific dance moves, or having training in a formal dance form.
 
Snowbunny Sorcerer said:
Years ago, I stumbled across and article of dancer outside the entertainment business that didn't think MJ was a "technical" dancer like the likes of Astaire, Kelly or Baryshnikov.

What I didn't understand was he never once defined what he meant by "technical?"

The floor is yours guys...
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MJ had little to no formal training in dance, all of his dancing was self taught/casually learned. Which is exceptional in his own right. But it's less of a lineage that he's a part of, obviously he has his role models, but he wasn't their "student", formally. And he was a bit of a jack of all trades, no 1 particular focus. James Brown, Fred Astaire, a little of all.

It's not a put down, but it sounds like a put down. Maybe not, idk the context. But MJ is in the dancers hall of fame, so he's no slouch in the dance category. He's well recognized no matter people's opinions.

When would MJ ever go to a formal dance studio or anything of the like anyway? Why would he need to. MJ's natural talents benefited more from not being influenced by any specific moves. It's just like he said "Dancing without thinking". Without education coloring his thought process, MJ was free to be as expansive as he could be.
 
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Hiker said:
no no, why would I enjoy that!! :devilish:. I prefer you on this forum, drooling over Michael. Now stop making everything about yourself :rolleyes: and say something about Michael.
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Michael Jackson is the most captivating, interesting and spell binding artist of our times. He effortlessly combines the talent of singing and dancing and translates that to both stage shows and video clips. He build bridges between the black and white music world. Opened doors for his peers for decades to come. He combined cinema and music to create state of the art videoclips and he flawlessly mixes dozens of dance steps while never looking like a copy cat, on the contrary Michael Jackson styled dancing is a genre on its own.
He is also extraordinary compassionate for the sick and needed. He is the type of person everyone should aspire to be: well spoken, thoughtful, classy, friendly and above all a friend to humanity and the animal world.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
It's not a put down, but it sounds like a put down. Maybe not, idk the context.
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I don't think its a put down, maybe even a lifter upper (ha ha), depending on the context. Training or no training, technical or no technical, there is no denying he is the best dancer.

filmandmusic said:
Michael Jackson is the most captivating, interesting and spell binding artist of our times. He effortlessly combines the talent of singing and dancing and translates that to both stage shows and video clips. He build bridges between the black and white music world. Opened doors for his peers for decades to come. He combined cinema and music to create state of the art videoclips and he flawlessly mixes dozens of dance steps while never looking like a copy cat, on the contrary Michael Jackson styled dancing is a genre on its own.
He is also extraordinary compassionate for the sick and needed. He is the type of person everyone should aspire to be: well spoken, thoughtful, classy, friendly and above all a friend to humanity and the animal world.
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wow! you can write so coherently!
 
Hiker said:
I don't think its a put down, maybe even a lifter upper (ha ha), depending on the context. Training or no training, technical or no technical, there is no denying he is the best dancer.
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I agree. But they seemed to compare to a lot of dancers, of a certain race, from a certain "era". Notice no mention of Nicholas Brothers or the like. I could easily see it having a certain stint. And Baryshnikov wasn't anything akin to a "dancer", in the commercial music world. He was a ballerina. But maybe I'm just being pessimistic.
 
I thought that's what they mean by "technical", classical dance training or something.
I do wonder of Michael could have done well in ballroom dancing. There is some in BOTDF, but it might have been too restrictive for him.
 
Well at the end of the day, MJ was an African American pop/R&B star. He would spend way more time with Soul Train than Baryshnikov.

Although, let me put my money where my mouth is:

Baryshnikov got to know him through Elizabeth Taylor, who would "drag him to see me dance," Baryshnikov said, when he was at American Ballet Theatre and later when performing in the White Oak Dance Project, his modern-dance company. They would talk about ballet — Jackson had a lot of questions, he recalled, "like a 12-year-old" — and he would ask about working with choreographers. He told Baryshnikov that choreographers would suggest ideas to him, but that he created his own dances.

What Baryshnikov remembers most about Jackson, he said, was "not even his turns or his grabbing his crotch. Just his simple, bouncy walk across the stage, that was what was most beautiful and arresting, swinging his hips, kicking his heel forward. That's to me what he is: that superior confidence in his body as a dancer. You wanted to say, 'Wow, this guy, what a cat; he can really move in his own way.'"

The Pulitzer Prizes

www.pulitzer.org www.pulitzer.org
 
Michael Jackson was a lyrical/expressive dancer, not a technical dancer.

Technical dancer is a dancer with technical skills (i.e., skills that have to do more with the position of the body, accuracy, precision, alignment, balance, posture, flexibility, etc).

Technical dance even has to do more with mental capacity.

A technical dancer tends to have less emotion and free expression in his/her dance moves, as compared to a lyrical/expressive dancer who dances with more emotion and free expression.

Also, being a technical dancer almost always requires dance training and lessons.
 
filmandmusic said:
So what, maybe they also want to see me suffer. I bet you’d enjoy that!
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@filmandmusic I would - let me get my phone out here lol 🤭:LOL:
Hiker said:
no no, why would I enjoy that!! :devilish:. I prefer you on this forum, drooling over Michael. Now stop making everything about yourself :rolleyes: and say something about Michael.
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Haha you tell him hiker @Hiker lol he came bumbling in on my mature 18 expecting me n lin to up the ante just for him like wth ! haha :eek::ROFLMAO:
filmandmusic said:
Michael Jackson is the most captivating, interesting and spell binding artist of our times. He effortlessly combines the talent of singing and dancing and translates that to both stage shows and video clips. He build bridges between the black and white music world. Opened doors for his peers for decades to come. He combined cinema and music to create state of the art videoclips and he flawlessly mixes dozens of dance steps while never looking like a copy cat, on the contrary Michael Jackson styled dancing is a genre on its own.
He is also extraordinary compassionate for the sick and needed. He is the type of person everyone should aspire to be: well spoken, thoughtful, classy, friendly and above all a friend to humanity and the animal world.
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Keep writing this way son . it's beauty intensified. (y)🫶💘

***************************
and to answer the thread. No. :ROFLMAO:
 
mj_frenzy said:
Michael Jackson was a lyrical/expressive dancer, not a technical dancer.
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Fair statement.

mj_frenzy said:
Technical dancer is a dancer with technical skills (i.e., skills that have to do more with the position of the body, accuracy, precision, alignment, balance, posture, flexibility, etc).

Technical dance even has to do more with mental capacity.

Also, being a technical dancer almost always requires dance training and lessons.
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Agreed although I would say a technical dancer always needs intensive training, over many years.

mj_frenzy said:
A technical dancer tends to have less emotion and free expression in his/her dance moves, as compared to a lyrical/expressive dancer who dances with more emotion and free expression.
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Disagree with this entirely. A technical dancer tends to have less emotion? Hm, tell that to Lynn Seymour, Sylvie Guillem, Misty Copeland, Zizi Jeanmaire, Viviana Durante, Tamara Rojo, Galina Ulanova, Natalia Makarova, Leslie Caron. How about Carlos Acosta, Adam Cooper, Michael Clark, Rudolf Nureyev, Stephen Petronio, Cesar Corrales, Roland Petit?

From Hollywood there was Cyd Charisse, Ann Miller, Donald O'Connor.

Can't let this go without mentioning Martha Graham, celebrated American choreographer who pioneered lyrical expression, fluidity of movement not to mention freedom from the somewhat rigid demands of classical ballet that dominated the 19th and early 20th centuries.

A trained dancer will always have more freedom of expression and better ability to convey emotion bc they have the training, the technique and a much wider dance vocabulary than the untrained dancer.

Snowbunny Sorcerer said:
Years ago, I stumbled across and article of dancer outside the entertainment business that didn't think MJ was a "technical" dancer like the likes of Astaire, Kelly or Baryshnikov.

What I didn't understand was he never once defined what he meant by "technical?"
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Can't really respond bc I'd want to see the article first. I def would want to know what he means by 'technical'. Michael was an untrained dancer with a somewhat limited dance vocabulary. But he was astonishingly brilliant at what he did, combining grace, athleticism, creativity, fluidity not to mention storytelling and badass groove. His dancing was physically rigourous and beautifully artistic, also. So I'm just confused, not really understanding the point this writer is trying to make.

As for Gene Kelly? Good dancer but I would rather watch Donald O'Connor any day.

​

 
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There is better 'technical' dancers out there than MJ but nobody will ever be as cool at pulling off their moves like Michael did.

He was just so bloody cool and looked like a superhero on that stage.

End of...
 
I don't know the first thing about dance, honestly. So I can't really answer this question well. However, Michael's dancing is the first thing that drew me to him. I have never cared about dance. I just never thought either way about it because I have never watched classical/technical dance of any kind and I wasn't into pop music before Michael. The only dancing I had ever seen, really, was some pop artists over the years, as well as some theater, but it never did much for me. But then...

I reference my discovery of Michael so often and I'm sorry. It's probably gotten tiresome to hear about. But he set some kind of fire inside of me that I don't expect will ever be put out. I mean, I didnt even care about dance. But stumbling upon a random Facebook reel of Michael dancing literally stopped me in my tracks. I was just stunned. I mean instantly stunned. Could not look away stunned. Mouth dropped open, unable to move stunned. He made me feel something insane immediately. I was mesmerized by him. In literally 20-30 seconds I went from never thinking about him, not caring either way about dance, feeling nothing about any of this, to becoming obsessed. I remember actually saying out loud to myself "holy shit, this is Michael Jackson?!" Because, again, it's not like I didn't know anything about him or how great he was. But I had basically only heard about how great he was, I hadn't witnessed it very much for myself, not in many, many years. But after that very first watch, I watched him constantly and I would get shivers. I would laugh. I would cry. I would feel insane. For real. It happened in the blink of an eye. It happened magically all because of his dancing.

^^^That is some wild ass power right there. I can't explain what he does, or how he does it. It's magic like I've never seen before. Magic l didn't even know existed. I have no idea what's happening when he's on stage, or how he is making me feel the way he does. But he does it every single time.

So idk if he is technical or not, but no one has ever made me react that way to dancing. No performer has ever made me feel even a fraction of what he makes me feel.

God. I really love this man.
 
staywild23 said:
I don't know the first thing about dance, honestly. So I can't really answer this question well. However, Michael's dancing is the first thing that drew me to him. I have never cared about dance. I just never thought either way about it because I have never watched classical/technical dance of any kind and I wasn't into pop music before Michael. The only dancing I had ever seen, really, was some pop artists over the years, as well as some theater, but it never did much for me. But then...

I reference my discovery of Michael so often and I'm sorry. It's probably gotten tiresome to hear about. But he set some kind of fire inside of me that I don't expect will ever be put out. I mean, I didnt even care about dance. But stumbling upon a random Facebook reel of Michael dancing literally stopped me in my tracks. I was just stunned. I mean instantly stunned. Could not look away stunned. Mouth dropped open, unable to move stunned. He made me feel something insane immediately. I was mesmerized by him. In literally 20-30 seconds I went from never thinking about him, not caring either way about dance, feeling nothing about any of this, to becoming obsessed. I remember actually saying out loud to myself "holy shit, this is Michael Jackson?!" Because, again, it's not like I didn't know anything about him or how great he was. But I had basically only heard about how great he was, I hadn't witnessed it very much for myself, not in many, many years. But after that very first watch, I watched him constantly and I would get shivers. I would laugh. I would cry. I would feel insane. For real. It happened in the blink of an eye. It happened magically all because of his dancing.

^^^That is some wild ass power right there. I can't explain what he does, or how he does it. It's magic like I've never seen before. Magic l didn't even know existed. I have no idea what's happening when he's on stage, or how he is making me feel the way he does. But he does it every single time.

So idk if he is technical or not, but no one has ever made me react that way to dancing. No performer has ever made me feel even a fraction of what he makes me feel.

God. I really love this man.
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It's nice to hear this actually. It's good to know it's not just our nostalgia that makes us awe struck by MJ's craft. He's truly genius.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
It's nice to hear this actually. It's good to know it's not just our nostalgia that makes us awe struck by MJ's craft. He's truly genius.
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Oh definitely not!! I only became a fan in Dec 2021/Jan 2022 and you've seen how insane I am about him. It's definitely not nostalgia but pure, undiluted, unparalleled magic 🤩 I genuinely feel sorry for anyone who doesn't get it. I'm an MJ evangelist all the way lol
 
О, я тоже чувствую эту магию. Я смотрела концерт и думала, что его танцоры так старались, они отлично подготовились, а я хочу только посмотреть на Майкла. даже если он просто ходит по сцене. это не просто восхищение движением, вы как бы наполняете себя его эмоциями и энергией. Я не знаю, как еще это назвать, так что магия — точное слово. Спасибо!
 
I'm sorry, I'm having trouble using the auto-translator. I just now saw what I did. My post above: Oh, I feel that magic too. I watched the concert and thought that his dancers tried so hard, they were well prepared, and I just want to look at Michael. even if he's just walking around the stage. it's not just admiration for the movement, you kind of fill yourself with its emotions and energy. I don't know what else to call it, so magic is the right word. Thank you!
 
hope said:
I'm sorry, I'm having trouble using the auto-translator. I just now saw what I did. My post above: Oh, I feel that magic too. I watched the concert and thought that his dancers tried so hard, they were well prepared, and I just want to look at Michael. even if he's just walking around the stage. it's not just admiration for the movement, you kind of fill yourself with its emotions and energy. I don't know what else to call it, so magic is the right word. Thank you!
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Hello Hope! do you speak Russian?
 
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