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"Don't Say Gay"

 Many are protesting the "Don't Say Gay" business in Florida (and Disney's complicit evasiveness), and so, for my own little protest, I'll spotlight one overlooked genius, the choreographer Michael Peters.


Peters was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. He had a high IQ but dropped out of school (because he hated it). He became a Broadway dancer -- and he involved himself in "The Wiz," "Purlie," "Raisin," and other shows. 

Peters's great achievement was to choreograph "Thriller," the gold-standard for music videos. Peters wanted to work with zombies, but he didn't want to be silly. He wouldn't use ballet; he would borrow from jazz dance. Peters invented a zombie "vocabulary": He considered how a dancing corpse would hold its shoulders, its hands, its jaw. Peters's dizzying inventiveness seems to have changed the world; I believe you can see Peters's ghost in "Bad Romance," and in "Telephone."

As with Arnold Lobel, as with James Marshall, the Michael Peters obituary can't be bothered to mention that Peters was gay. You have to read between the lines.

Hats off today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_mIw_530sw
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