Overview
- Marlon Jackson shared the account on WFAN, saying an eight-year-old nephew on his wife’s side first demonstrated the motion at home.
- He recalled rehearsals before Motown 25 and said the family expected Michael to use the move during the 1983 special.
- Marlon said the step was then called the “backwards slide,” and that dancer Jeffrey Daniel later taught Michael the technique.
- Jeffrey Daniel had performed the “backslide” on television in 1982 with Shalamar on the BBC’s Top of the Pops.
- Reporting situates the anecdote within a longer history, noting earlier versions of the step in African American dance.