Choreographic analysis of dance: historical context and performance research

Dance Peters

The Pop Music Choreography of Michael Peters

Few forms of dancing are more present in our popular culture than that associated with popular music. While the forms of tap, ballet and ballroom all occupy an obvious place in our academic understanding of dance, these are for the large part only seen in specialized contexts such as theatres and formal events. This contrasts the style of dance and choreography that accompanies live pop music performances, music videos, television shows and perhaps more importantly, our own informal dancing proclivities. It is for this reason that we consider a pioneer in this form and one who, though hardly a household name, has had a dramatic influence on the way that dancing is choreographed in pop music contexts from Justin Timberlake to Glee. Michael Peters was among the most prominent music video choreographers of the 1980s. In an era when the medium of MTV was helping the pop music industry achieve new heights of economic success, Peters' style of choreography would prove iconic to its time and highly influential on succeeding generations of pop choreographers. His body of work is the subject of this discussion.

In 1982, Michael Peters collaborated with director John Landis and pop superstar Michael Jackson on "Thriller." Still widely considered the greatest and most important music video of all time, "Thriller" was essentially a short-film centered around a horror-themed plot and the title song of what would become -- due in no small part to the revelatory success of the video itself -- the biggest selling album ever produced. Therefore, to say that the work of the late Michael Peters was important is an understatement. Though "Thriller" was his most iconic work, he had already amassed an impressive resume of 1980s hit-making videos by that point. According to Monfalco (1994), Peters' credits "ncluding choreography for Donna Summer's Love to Love You Baby, Michael Jackson's Beat It, Pat Benatar's Love is a Battlefield [and] Lionel Richie's Hello." (Monfalco, p. 1) In all of these works, Peters' signature style is on display. This, it is clear, owes a great debt to Broadway and music theatre. His scenes favor large, ensemble sequences intended to convey a highly structured narrative. Peters truly perceived the evolving medium of the music video as a way to tell the song's story through interpretive dance.

This is certainly on evidence in such compositions as that for "Beat It," which Dunning (1994) tells actually co-starred Peters as a lead gang member. "Beat It" makes heavy nods toward the particular Broadway tradition of West Side Story, simulating a pair of rival urban gangs of a distinctly 1980s aesthetic engaged in conflict with Michael Jackson serving as the peacemaker. Again, here, a large cast of theatre-trained dancers is used. To Peters' credit though, dancers were also cast to showcase the loose and freewheeling qualities of popular music and urban forms such as breakdancing. The result was an ensemble performance both highly synchronized and simultaneously given over to individual displays of startling creativity, almost like soloing jazz musicians working off of a shared theme.

In an article by Chu & Rowes (1984), a colleague of Peters would account for this approach, telling that "instead of counting out the steps, as is the rule in classical ballet and modern dance, he has tilted the emphasis of dance toward the sounds of the instruments -- a slick drum riff, say, or a guitar lick. 'When you dance by the numbers,' he says, 'you extract all emotions and sterilize the movement. You remove the dance from its inspiration, which is the music. What I love is the capability of a body to be free in the sense of street or social dancing and, at the same time, do something that is technically hard and tremendously disciplined." (Chu & Rowes, p. 1)

This description seems to fit the work of Michael Jackson perfectly. The ensemble dance number that drives the narrative of "Thriller" is driven by this symbiosis between synchronized and independent movements, with Jackson capable of the most expressive and versatile of solos. The choreography of the video gives the singular dancer the opportunity that is described here above, to dance in a way that is at once improvised, organic, social and natural but also reflective of the mood established by the narrative scene. This is done to masterful effect in the collaboration between Peters, Jackson and Landis, which can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOnqjkJTMaA

In many ways, the hybrid of musical theatre and popular music that Peters helped to create would be a natural leap for the choreographer. A significant portion of his early career as well as his career simultaneous to his work with MTV-ready artists was spent not just working in Broadway and musical theatre but in pursuing theatre content that merged these two worlds. According to Dunning, "Mr. Peters was born in Brooklyn, and performed with modern-dance choreographers and company directors in the 1960's and 70's, among them Talley Beatty, Alvin Ailey, Bernice Johnson and Fred Benjamin. He also created dances for the concert stage before his first major breakthrough in theater in 1979 in the Broadway musical 'Comin' Uptown,' an all-black version of Dickens's 'Christmas Carol,' which starred Gregory Hines. He directed his first Broadway musical, 'Leader of the Pack,' in 1985." (Duning, p. 1)

Each of these works was themed or composed using many of the sonic conventions of modern popular music, placing Peters at the helm of production numbers that leaned heavily on narrative context but which were design for compatibility with pop music forms. In this area of his career, the high point would be a 1982 Tony for his choreography in the Broadway music, "Dream Girls." In light of the fact that this was the same year in which "Thriller" was unleashed on the world, it may not be an exaggeration to suggest that Peters exerted a singular influence on the industry in the 1980s. In fact, it is quite fair to suggest that his choreographic direction is responsible for a great many of the standard practices that now drive a pop music show whether live or in the context of the music video. So contend his former colleagues, according to Chu & Rowes. They report that fellow choreographer Vince Paterson stated of Peters that "He originated a lot of the movements other choreographers now imitate." (Chu & Rowes, p. 1)