Entry · catalog no. 9424
moonwalk
/ /ˈmunˌwɔk/ /MOON-wawk
noun · United States, Black street and stage dance · 1980s
✓ Verified
1.
A dance illusion of walking forward while gliding backward, also known as the backslide.
“He did the moonwalk across the whole cafeteria.”
Origin & Attribution
Popularized worldwide by Michael Jackson, who performed it on the Motown 25 television special on May 16, 1983. The move itself was not invented by him: Black street dancers had been doing the backslide for years, and Jeffrey Daniel of Shalamar performed it on British television in 1982 and has said he taught it to Jackson. The glide has older stage precedents in Black vaudeville and jazz dance as well, which Jackson's fame overshadowed. Credit the move to the Black dance tradition, with Jackson as its most famous performer.
1982
Jeffrey Daniel of Shalamar performs the backslide on British television
1983
Michael Jackson performs the moonwalk on Motown 25
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The South
United States, Black street and stage dance · 1980s
Spoken by
Black dancers, pop audiences worldwide
$MOONWAThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady44 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
75/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1982
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
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New Orleans, LA
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Houston, TX
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Citations & Sources
■
Moonwalk (dance), Wikipedia
web
■
Jeffrey Daniel, Wikipedia
web
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+ Cite a sourceOpen Culture, 'The Origins of Michael Jackson's Moonwalk'
web
See also