Smith Wordes, Dancer in Smooth Criminal, 1988

“We would be in rehearsals and as you entered everybody would be offered earplugs including the dancers, because the music was so loud that it would rock the floor. And that was because Michael wanted to feel the soul of the music.

If you watch carefully you’ll see that other than when he’s doing more kinda streetdance type stuff there was nothing tactical about what he’s doing and he’s brillant. Every dancer moves when they watch Michael move. He makes everybody who can’t dance feel the dancer in themsleves. Because it comes frmm the heart and soul. He just has the soul of a dancer.

He did Smooth Criminal and everyday at lunch, the entire cast of dancers was invited to the dailies. The dailies are the rushes where you get to see all the footage from the day before. That’s unheard of. The producers rarely allowed any performer into rushes or to the dailies and Michael just made sure that we got that kind of reward for our work. It was a really nice gift. Was a really nice gift and I never received that anywhere else.

So I hope his legacy would be that he brought soul the commercial world.”