Vincent Paterson says he is honored to have collaborated with Michael Jackson.
The 76-year-old choreographer spent more than fifteen years working with Michael, shaping the dance sequences for his Super Bowl halftime show, the Bad tour, and the Smooth Criminal music video, and he feels fortunate to have had such extensive collaboration with the pop icon.
In an interview with People, Paterson reflected: “You strive to deliver the best work you can at the moment. And with Michael Jackson, the excitement lay in him constantly asking me to create something the world had never witnessed before. What more could an artist ask for than that?”
Michael — who passed away in June 2009 at the age of 50 — granted Paterson the freedom to develop his own “crazy ideas.”
The choreographer regards the Smooth Criminal music video — opening with Michael flipping a coin across the room and it landing in the jukebox — as a career highlight.
Paterson recalled: “I started it in that fashion, and I thought, ‘We must keep generating some of these wild concepts throughout.’ I’m truly happy that it all paid off.”
“I’m simply so delighted that even now, people are still talking about it, writing to me about it, and sharing the joy of watching it with their own children.”
Paterson still remembers Michael being “blown away” by the idea for the video.
The dancer said: “He was blown away. It was a fantastic, unforgettable moment. Everyone in the room felt the excitement.”
Paterson added: “I’m so honored. I’m so grateful.”
The choreographer has also collaborated with Madonna during his career — but he emphasizes that the two pop stars are “very different.”
He explained: “Madonna came into the room with me, and we would push until she fully grasped it.”
“I would primarily teach him what I had created, and then he would retreat into a space on his own and repeat the same movement, I don’t even know, for half an hour or two hours until it flowed out of his body so perfectly that everyone felt the move came from him. That sense of organic emergence brought me immense joy, knowing it felt truly his.”
