《紐約客》評論——邁克爾的月球漫步舞

 

月球漫步——邁克爾的舞步



作者：Joan Acocella，2009年7月27日

中文來源：mjjcn.com
編譯：Medges/kmclover來源：http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/dancing/2009/07/27/090727crda_dancing_acocella?currentPage=all

譯者注：《紐約客》（The New Yorker），也譯作《紐約人》，是一份美國知識、文藝類的綜合雜誌，內容覆蓋新聞報導、文藝評論、散文、漫畫、詩歌、小說，以及紐約文化生活動向等。《紐約客》原為週刊，後改為每年42期週刊加5個雙週刊。《紐約客》現由康得納斯出版公司出版。《紐約客》不是完全的新聞雜誌，然而它對美國和國際政治、社會重大事件的深度報導是其特色之一。雜誌保持多年的欄目“城中話題”(The Talk of the Town）專門發表描繪紐約日常生活事件的短文章，文筆簡練幽默。每期雜誌都會點綴有《紐約客》獨特風格的單格漫畫，讓人忍俊不禁。儘管《紐約客》上不少的內容是關於紐約當地文化生活的評論和報導，但由於其高品質的寫作隊伍和嚴謹的編輯作風，《紐約客》在紐約以外也擁有眾多的讀者。

 

 如果你看看1969年傑克遜五兄弟組合（the Jackson 5）在艾德蘇利文節目（the Ed Sullivan）表演“想你回來”（I Want You Back）的話，你就會發現十一歲的邁克爾作為該組合最年輕的領唱已經是一個A級別的舞蹈高手了。他有張小圓臉，帶著粉色的帽子，很明顯他很為這個帽子自豪，做出各種舞蹈動作，踢腿踮腳，搖頭晃腦，打響指，還盡情地在其中加入半音和四分音。最讓人稱奇的是他的音感，他全身心回應音譜的能力，隨著音樂的節拍，他能創造性地舞進舞出。音感一般都是自發而生的，而他那麼早的時候就已經具備了這種天賦。

到1979年的“不停追求”（Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough）時，10年之後的邁克爾已經開始了自己的獨唱生涯。他的舞步更加絢麗。但是在二十一歲的時候，就如同十一歲一樣，由於他的自然，他讓人驚豔。他的跳躍帶著喜感；擺著頭，開著襯衣。

 

接下來就是1980年代早期里程碑式的音樂錄音“Billie Jean” “Beat It”和 “Thriller”了，這幾首歌都是1982年的《顫慄》專輯中的，該專輯也是舉世唱片銷售頭牌。此時，傑克遜已經是一個完美的舞者了。他舞動敏捷迅速，有著成人的肌肉，所以他的整個身體都在“舞動”。（這意味著每一塊肌肉都在伸張，都在為舞蹈服務。一覽無遺。）因此他舞蹈動作乾淨有力。例如1987年的“The Way You Make Me Feel”中，你可以看見他和其他舞伴在做相同的舞步，雖然看不清臉，只有身體輪廓，但是你能認出來哪個是他。他每一個舞步都跳得比其他人更專注，比其他任何人都能更清晰地向觀眾展示其動作。這個期間的音樂錄影中有一些新的舞步——例如，高速多圈旋轉（有時候看起來像利用了技術支援）。現在他的著名的月球漫步舞步是他從霹靂舞中學來的。同時他還會做一些有挑逗意味的動作，最有名的要屬抓檔提胯，這個引人矚目的動作貫穿了其整個職業生涯。

顫慄時期的音樂錄影將MTV台化腐朽為神奇。傑克遜自己也有意識地這麼做了。“我想成為這個新媒介裏的先鋒。”在其1988年的自傳《月球漫步》中他有這麼說道。他也花了大筆的錢打造這些MV。1995年的“Scream”花掉了700萬美元，創下當時的記錄。他並不喜歡稱這些為錄影。他聲稱這些都是“短篇電影”，他們不是將其記錄在錄影帶上，而且使用 三十五毫米 的膠捲來拍攝。“我們對此很認真的。”他說。
傑克遜從各種類型的風格中汲取編舞靈感：嘻哈、短襪舞、靈魂列車、迪斯可、爵士舞，再加一點踢踏舞和查爾斯頓舞 (20世紀20年代流行的一種交誼舞，節奏明快有力。)根據他的自述，他自己也創造出了一些舞步。在其自傳中，他說就在要在Motown的25周年慶典上表演之前，“Billie Jean”連基本舞步都沒有。用他自己的話說，他進出廚房，將音量開到最大，“讓舞蹈渾然天成吧”。他的月球漫步舞在那晚首次登臺亮相。

但是邁克爾大多數的舞蹈並非一人完成。邁克爾皮特斯（Michael Peters），文森特派特森（Vincent Paterson）以及傑佛瑞丹尼爾（Jeffrey Daniel）都在舞臺和電視上和邁克爾有過合作。在1991年PBS特輯“大家來跳舞”（Everybody Dance Now）中，皮特斯回答一位舞蹈歷史學家薩利索莫（Sally Sommer）時說，邁克爾的方法是將一些舞蹈和創意拿給編舞師，讓其成為一個相互連貫統一的舞蹈。

但是呢，無論是邁克爾自己創造還是與他人合作，結果都差不多。他並沒有太多舞步。你幾乎都可以數出來：提胯搖臀，膝蓋彎曲（由內向外的反轉），腳尖旋轉（同上），抬膝，高速旋轉以及腳尖點地等，所有這些。這些舞步基本上都是連續完成的。他完成一個階段就停住，然後完全下一個階段再停住。他還有一些舞步實在是太自然了，以至於我們都很難稱之為舞步：走動、跳躍以及小跑都是那麼輕巧可愛，淩波輕盈，氣昂飛揚。在音樂錄影編舞中，他至少創造了一種非常重要的革新——獨舞者身後使用大量伴舞團隊，但是除去這個，他創造出的不同於他自己以前的或者其他人的舞步的新東西並不多。即便如此很多人還是喜歡一次次看到他舞蹈，及時評論家開始惡評其音樂作品和MV後很長一段時間，他們依舊喜歡邁克爾的舞蹈。

有時候舞者必須對舞蹈有信仰。傑克遜很敬仰弗萊德阿斯泰爾（Fred Astaire），他對電影音樂有相當的瞭解。他還在自己的自傳中說當阿斯泰爾稱讚他的時候是多麼激動。這位大師甚至還邀請邁克爾去他家，在那裏邁克爾還教他及其舞指荷摩斯（Hermes Pan）月球漫步舞，（阿斯泰爾告訴傑克遜，他倆，阿斯泰爾和邁克爾，舞蹈都基於憤怒——一種很有意思的標誌，至少是阿斯泰爾的。）但是儘管傑克遜對前輩很敬畏，他從沒有學會阿斯泰爾的兩個基本原則：（1）絕不因為特寫或者其他無關的拍攝而打斷舞蹈；（2）偏愛全身的特寫鏡頭。在阿斯泰爾看來，舞蹈是最首要的——是他的主線——他會將整個舞蹈都拍下來。在傑克遜的MV中，舞蹈只能排到第三位，甚至是第四位（前幾位是歌曲、故事線以及拍攝）。鏡頭在不斷地切換，等再切回來的時候，通常就只限於上半身了。傑克遜並沒有足夠地重視舞蹈。

流行音樂評論家們通常都會對Thriller這張專輯作如上評價，儘管它屬於早期作品——他僅僅二十四歲——傑克遜在他的音樂道路上作了他能做的最大嘗試。這樣的評價可能同樣適用于這張專輯中所收錄的音樂作品。Thriller中的影像已經成為世界文化的一部分。在YouTube上你能夠看到菲律賓宿霧教養所（Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center）的1500名犯人身穿桔色制服，表演Thriller中那段齊舞的視頻短片（監獄管理人員認為這有助於加強犯人的紀律性）。後期的作品之所以沒有這麼高的流行度是因為它們不夠出色。現在他作品中的舞蹈和敍事更多的傾向於使用焰火特效。他被煙火公司們包圍了。他身後騰起絢麗的煙火。（追溯到1984年，他拍攝百事可樂的廣告時被特效煙火引燃了頭髮，並不得不接受三級燒傷治療。）然後開始進入電腦特效時期：他時而憑空消失，時而慢慢顯形，他甚至飛簷走壁。憑藉這些特效，那種自憐自戀之情的出現就不難解釋了。

“Heal the World” (1992)帶領我們直面戰爭，和戰爭中那些無助吮吸手指的棄兒；“Earth Song” (1995)則將焦點投諸於環境污染。這原本無可厚非，如果他繼續跳舞。但他沒有，或者說他做得不夠。在一部作品中他只是走動而沒有舞步，在另一部作品中他只是坐在那兒，在“Heal the World”中他甚至沒有露面。在他後期最困難時刻的作品“You Are Not Alone” (1995)中，他被塑造為近乎全裸、有一雙巨大羽翼的天使形象。無需多言，這與舞蹈無關。他後期的許多作品中充斥著自我擴張和自憐等一些情緒。此時的他，也正如同那些無助的棄兒一般，只能依靠吮吸自己的手指來獲得安慰。

儘管如此，他偶爾也會離座起舞，讓我們仿佛回到了那些過去的日子。他最後一部為世人所知的錄影顯示，他正在為倫敦的檔期進行彩排並蓄勢待發。他完成走位，他盡情搖擺，每個動作都迅捷有力，作為CNN首席醫學記者的Sanjay Gupta如此寫道：“這看上去完全不像一個病人。”更不用說傑克遜已有五十高齡，而且因為這只是彩排所以他很可能並沒有全力以赴。他仍然是一位偉大的舞者。兩天之後，他與世長辭。

Dancing

Walking on the Moon

Michael Jackson in motion.

by Joan Acocella July 27, 2009

Jackson performing on tour, in the summer of 1981. Photograph by Todd Gray.

If you watch a video of the Jackson 5 performing “I Want You Back,” on the Ed Sullivan show, in 1969, you will see that the group’s lead vocalist—Michael, the youngest of the five brothers—was already an A-list dancer at the age of eleven. Here is this fat-cheeked boy, in a pink Super Fly hat that he is obviously proud of, doing tilts and dips and fanny rocks and finger snaps, and tucking in little extras—half steps, quarter steps—between them. Most amazing is his musicality, his ability to respond to the score faithfully and yet creatively, playing with the music, moving in before and after the beat. Musicality always comes off as spontaneity, and he was loved, early on, for that quality.

Now turn to “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” (1979). Ten years have passed. He has started recording his own songs. He does fancier steps. But at twenty-one, as at eleven, he is galvanizing above all because of his naturalness. He hops with joy; he wags his head; his shirt comes untucked.

Then come the landmark videos of the early nineteen-eighties: “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” and “Thriller,” all of them for songs that appeared on the collection “Thriller” (1982), which is the best-selling album of all time. At this point, Jackson has just about everything you would want in a dancer. He is very fast, and, now that the adult musculature has come in, his whole body is “worked.” (This means that every muscle is stretched, and operating in the service of the dance. Nothing is blurred.) As a result, he has a sharp attack, and wonderful clarity. Watch him—as you can, for example, in “The Way You Make Me Feel” (1987)—dancing, silhouetted, alongside other men doing the same steps. You can’t see the faces, but you know which one he is. He dives into a step more intently, and shows it to us more precisely, than anyone else. Around this time, the videos are featuring some new moves—for example, multiple spins (which seem, at times, to have received technical assistance). And he’s now doing the famous moonwalk, which he picked up from break dancing. He has also started doing some rather dirty moves, notably the crotch-grab, which will endure, with striking embellishments, throughout his career.

The “Thriller”-period videos were instrumental in converting MTV from a backwater to a sensation. Jackson consciously aimed at doing that. “I wanted to be a pioneer in this relatively new medium,” he said in his 1988 memoir, “Moon Walk” (a book, incidentally, edited by Jacqueline Onassis). He spent a fortune on these projects. The 1995 “Scream” video cost seven million dollars—a record at that time. He didn’t like to call these works videos. They were “short films,” he claimed—and rightly, for he had them shot not on videotape but on 35-mm. film. “We were serious,” he said.

Jackson took his choreography from a number of sources: hip-hop, sock hop, “Soul Train,” disco, and jazz dance, plus a little tap and Charleston . By his account, he constructed some of the movement himself. “Billie Jean,” he says in “Moon Walk,” still had no dance component the night before he was scheduled to perform it in honor of Motown’s twenty-fifth anniversary. He went down to the kitchen, turned on the music full blast, and, in his words, “let the dance create itself” on his body. His moonwalk had its début in that number.

But on most of his dances he did not work alone. Michael Peters, Vincent Paterson, and Jeffrey Daniel, all of them experienced stage and TV choreographers, collaborated with Jackson . On the PBS special “Everybody Dance Now” (1991), in answer to a question from the dance historian Sally Sommer, Peters said that Jackson ’s method was to put together some steps and ideas and bring them to a choreographer, who would then organize them into a coherent dance.

But, whether he went it alone or got help, the result was much the same. He didn’t have a lot of moves. You can almost count them on your fingers: the gyrating hips, the bending knees (reversing from inward to outward), the pivoting feet (ditto), the one raised knee, the spins, and, above all, the rotated or raised heel, which is what he gets around on. These steps are generally done staccato. He finishes the phrase and freezes, then finishes the next phrase and freezes. He also has some moves so natural that one hesitates to call them steps: lovely, light-footed walks, struts, jumps, and runs. He made at least one important innovation in music-video choreography—the use of large ensembles dancing behind the soloist—but beyond that he created very little dancing that was different from his own prior numbers, or anyone else’s. Yet many people were happy to see him, again and again, do the thing he did. Long after the critics soured on his music and his videos, they still liked his dancing.

Sometimes they had to take the dancing on faith. Jackson, who had a thorough knowledge of the movie musical, revered Fred Astaire. He records in his memoir how thrilled he was when Astaire praised him. The old master even invited him over to his house, where Jackson taught the moonwalk to him and his choreographer Hermes Pan. (Astaire told Jackson that both of them, he and Jackson, danced out of anger—an interesting remark, at least about Astaire.) But despite Jackson ’s awe of his predecessor, he never learned the two rules that Astaire, as soon as he gained power over the filming, insisted on: (1) don’t interrupt the dance with reaction shots or any other extraneous shots, and (2) favor a full-body shot over a closeup. To Astaire, the dance was primary—his main story—and he had it filmed accordingly. In Jackson ’s videos, the dance is tertiary, even quaternary (after the song and the story and the filming). The camera repeatedly cuts away, and, when it comes back, it often limits itself to the upper body. Jackson didn’t value his dancing enough.

Pop critics often say that with the “Thriller” album, though it came early —he was only twenty-four— Jackson went as far as he ever got musically. The same might be said of the music videos born of this album. The “Thriller” video became part of world culture. On YouTube, you can see a clip of fifteen hundred inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center , in the Philippines , doing the “Thriller” dance in unison, in their orange uniforms. (Prison officials thought it would be a good lesson in discipline.) The later videos were not as popular, because they were not as good. Now, in place of dancing and stories, he ramped up the pyrotechnics. Smoke banks enclose him. Great flames shoot up behind him. (Back in 1984, while he was filming a Pepsi commercial, the special effects set his hair on fire. He had to be treated for third-degree burns.) Then come the computer-generated effects: he vanishes, he materializes, he walks on walls. With this abracadabra, good causes, mawkishly treated, make their entry. “Heal the World” (1992) gave us war, and abandoned children sucking their thumbs; “Earth Song” (1995) was about the destruction of the environment. This would have been O.K. if he had gone on dancing, but he didn’t, or not much. In one video, he just walked; in another, he just sat; in “Heal the World,” he didn’t appear. “You Are Not Alone” (1995), the major embarrassment of this late period, shows him as an angel, quite naked, with a vast pair of feathered wings. Needless to say, this ruled out dancing. Many of the late videos are heavy on self-aggrandizement; others, on self-pity. He, too, was sucking his thumb.

Occasionally, though, he would get up off his chair, and then it was like old times. The last known video shows him at a rehearsal for the London season he was about to embark on. He struts, he boogies; he snaps and pops. As CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta, said, “This doesn’t look like someone who’s very sick to me.” That’s not to mention that Jackson was fifty years old and, because he was in rehearsal, was probably not performing “full out.” He was still a great dancer. Two days later, he was dead. ♦