New Design Let Dancers Execute 45-Degree Lean in Live Performances To watch a YouTube clip of a live performance of the song, click here.
To see a full pdf of the patent, click here. The tech blog BoingBoing pointed out the patent Thursday.
"Many popular music and dance entertainers expend great effort in enhancing and choreographing their performances and dancing," the patent document says. "Interesting stage design, lighting, fog generators, laser light shows and large video screens all enhance the appealability of live and recorded performances."
"Music entertainers and dancers are constantly searching for new and interesting elements which can be incorporated into their musical and dance performances," the patent reads. The pegs retracted back into the stage after the move was executed so as not to impede the performers. That's a complicated way of saying the dancers' shoes had heels with slots that can hitch onto pegs that protruded from the stage at predetermined times. Bush and Dennis Tompkins as the inventors, the patent describes a "system for allowing a shoe wearer to lean forwardly beyond his center of gravity by virtue of wearing a specially designed pair of shoes which will engage with a hitch member movably projectable through a stage surface." Patent and Trademark Office in June 1992 lays it all out.
But when the King of Pop and his dancers leaned at a gravity-defying 45 degrees in live performances of the 1987 hit "Smooth Criminal," it was a secret gimmick - not super-human talent - that made it all possible.Ī patent filed with the U.S.