The Arts Council

Welcome, everyone, to Midday Magazine for this January 11th, 2024.

Have your host, James J. Mailoff here at 330.

We're welcome in our friend, Anna James, Regional National Natural Resource

Educator with UW-Madison.

Looking forward to that.

Right now, I've been looking forward to this all week, Sally.

We have Sally Kissner with us, Executive Director, the Arts Council of

Southwood County.

Thanks for being here, Sally.

Thank you.

And as always, Sally brings us a great guest.

And we've got Michael Knight joining us right now to talk about MJ, the

illusion, reliving the king of pop.

Michael, how are you?

I'm good.

How are you?

Thank you so much for having me.

I appreciate the time, Michael.

I know how busy you must be.

And also appreciate the fact that you are impersonating somebody with the same

name, first name.

Makes it really easy for your guests for hosts.

You know, really easy for me.

Appreciate the time, man.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

It's funny.

Everybody says the same thing.

Thank you.

What's your name?

Michael, they go, come on.

What's really your name?

I want to talk about your show.

I want to talk about Michael Jackson a little bit with you.

But before we get to any of that, let's get to know you a little bit first, sir.

Okay.

What can you tell us a little bit about your origin story, Michael?

Where are you from?

Well, I'm originally from one socket, Rhode Island.

But I currently live in Branson, Missouri.

I've been performing like Michael, I've been dancing like him since I was about 12 years

old.

I started off as just being a fan, trying to mimic his dance moves like everybody else.

And my aunt saw me dancing outside and she goes, you know, your uncle, he can do all

that.

Moonwalk and pop and lock.

Like no way.

And I ended up calling him up.

And he actually, he could have been a professional break dancer.

He was absolutely phenomenal.

But that's kind of where my roots kind of began from learning how to pop and lock and

break.

And then I kind of converted that into just strictly Michael Jackson.

I'm guessing that our stories may, may stop being parallel after this, Michael, but that

you, you're, I'm an, I got an acting when I was young and I've been in radio for 22 years

and been acting since I was a kid.

And my first entertaining I ever did was break dancing, me and my friend Jamal, we got

together, break danced.

And I was about eight, nine years old.

And I, I was, I was trying in my shoes to do the moonwalk and I couldn't do it.

I took them off and I got it down and then I put them on and started to be able to do

it.

To prep for the interview here because I'm a professional interviewer, I tested myself

to see if I could still moonwalk, had to take the shoes off.

I couldn't do it in my shoes.

I was so disappointed in myself.

I was bad.

I completely understand that, you know, it's funny is whenever I teach somebody, you know,

because a lot of people ask me on time how to moonwalk and stuff and I usually during

meet and greet, so I usually show them and teach them.

I always tell them to wear socks and practice one side first and then do the other side.

Don't just try to just jump right into trying to do it because it's, okay, so it's kind

of like when you pat your head and rubbed belly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're subconscious, right?

Because they think of what the visual aspects of the moonwalk is and that's walking backwards

but sliding back, so they slide back the bent leg.

But if they did the complete opposite and slid back the straight leg, that is how the

illusion works as one leg slides back and he appears to be coming forward.

Oh.

So it's actually pretty good that you did it and you have to take your shoes off.

I didn't get that freedom.

My foot taught me in a pair of Nike's Uncarpent.

Oh.

Oh.

Oh.

You are good, sir.

You are good.

That is impressive.

That is easy.

But I can tell you, in that medium, when you get it down and be able to still create the

glide and still create the slide, oh, man.

And I was in school, in high school, I was doing it on carpet, I was doing it on grass,

I was doing it in the halls.

And then that's actually how I got my nickname Michael Jackson.

Nice.

That leads me perfectly to why Michael Jackson.

Now, certainly, I think why it's understandable the man had a multiple decade career, billions

of hits, king of pop.

I mean, I could see, you know, certainly wanted to cover somebody like that with that

body of work and everything.

But again, why?

Because it's all of the things I just said, there's an expectation there.

There's quite the bar that you're looking to reach.

What was it about Michael Jackson that you wanted to do a show like this?

You know, okay, so I, because people asked that, you know, how I became a fan and all

of that.

You know, I kind of feel like Michael Jackson came into my life at the perfect time.

It wasn't a thing that I got brought up where my family loved Michael Jackson or anything

like that.

In fact, you know, I'm a, I was born in 85, so, you know, I was, I was a late 80s, 90s

kid.

And growing up, Michael Jackson was not the hip guy, you know, gangster rapist and following

my big brother who was on that same path, I started going towards that path because that

was where him and his friends were going.

And Michael Jackson, I was watching VH1 and I saw a black away and I, it was weird because

I didn't remember him looking like that.

I remember him looking like the thriller and anything about him.

And the next day I went online and I started looking them up and then I saw Motown 25,

which was extremely pixelated, by the way, and I was just mesmerized.

I listened to a beatbox and I went, oh my God, this guy is amazing.

So I put away my baggy jeans.

I started dressing really nice and I didn't know what to say.

That's awesome, man.

I appreciate that, not only the transparency, but I feel like we're being transported

back to that.

It's very cool.

And it shows that you are quite a storyteller.

You've been on the air with us for like five, six minutes now.

We've been caught up in everything you've been saying, man.

I imagine that you're able to transfer that on stage pretty well and give quite a show.

How does your show, actually, I want to rewind for a second.

How did you prep for playing Michael Jackson differently than some others did, at least

from what I could see, you had a much different approach.

I did.

I did.

First, I kind of went into it like everyone else.

You have to learn about the industry.

You have to learn about, you know, again, this is before YouTube.

So you had to learn everything by books and videos and, you know, study, study, study.

Again, I was the Michael Jackson kid in high school.

I got best dancer in my school.

Everyone knew me for my Michael Jackson.

And I decided that I was going to do it.

I saw a documentary in 2002 about a person doing the tribute to Michael Jackson.

It was on VH1 and I went, oh my God, this is a job.

I want to do this.

I want to do this.

Everybody thought it was nuts.

And I can honestly say, I saw that documentary in 2002.

He worked for a company called Legends and Concert in 2015 and I joined that company.

And I'd been with that company for eight years.

So I did exactly what I was set out that I said I was going to do.

But besides that, I had to kind of like learn the ropes.

I started doing different theater shows performing like Michael.

In 2012, I moved out of Rhode Island and sort of working with a whole management team.

And then that got me mixed into doing a lot of stuff in LA and in Vegas.

And then in 2013, I was contracted to work with Travis Pean and Stacy Walker.

I worked with them for about a month straight where they taught me everything about dance.

I had to take ballet.

I had to take jazz.

I had to take hip-hop classes on top of learning 13 or 14 different Michael Jackson routines

from they don't really care about us.

The screen to the drill to all the stuff that they were going to do and this is it.

It pretty much taught me everything out of that entire catalog.

And then once I was working with Travis, obviously that gets you set up with people in that general circle.

So we ended up getting a hold of Seth Riggs.

And Seth Riggs started personally training me on my voice to give me that real authentic Michael Jackson sound.

So and then I was doing shows for that.

And then after that, that's when I got the message about legends and concerts

and they asked me to audition.

And then I auditioned and then I was next thing, you know, I'm in Branson is very doing their show for six months.

So I would say that's kind of how my approach was.

And I was, I'm also the type of person that doesn't stop learning.

I've had a lot of great mentors throughout the years.

I'm sad that he passed away, but I was that eager kid who wanted to know everything.

So I really jived into all of the makeup aspects, the wigs, the costuming.

I was always asking questions.

If I saw somebody that I thought was really good, I would message them and ask them everything and anything.

And whatever kind of advice they could give, I would just study, study, study, study, study.

I love the way that it is awarding the reliving of the King of Pop because this is such a reliving of the King of Pop.

This is really what you've done.

You've really formed and gotten into the suit of Michael into what it is to be him on stage.

And that's really cool to see, especially I cannot encourage people enough to check out his work.

You look up MJ the illusion and you're going to see a lot of Michael's work.

And we're going to play a sample of it for you during the interview today,

looking forward to being able to give that to the audience and looking forward to you coming to town here, Michael.

I wanted to ask me just a couple of really quick questions.

I want to keep you too long.

What was it like performing at the Rose Bowl?

Michael performed at the 2018 legendary Rose Bowl.

What was that like?

Oh man, that was surreal.

The moment that made it really surreal is when I was singing, I want to say it was either human nature or I'll be there.

One of them, one of the bowels.

I look out and I see 60,000 stars.

Like how do you drive 60,000 stars?

But like it was just one of those moments where you're just like,

every time I hand see you and just look out and you go in your brain, you can't do this on stage.

But in your brain, you're going, oh my God, yeah, this is insane.

So the answer question, it was amazing.

The casting crew there was fantastic.

The band that I was working with at the time was phenomenal players.

Some of them worked with Berlin.

One of them was a piano player of the Google Dolls.

It was really, it was a magical moment.

Really cool.

Sounds like it.

Michael, when people come to the show on January 25th, what can they expect?

OK, so this show is so special to me and just in general, I wanted to do something different

than you mostly see a lot of the tribute shows that you see.

A lot of tribute shows they want to make things bigger and bigger and bigger, which is beautiful.

We simplified it.

We made it the way Michael's show was.

Michael had four dancers.

Michael had LaBelle Smith Jr., Randall Lair, Jamie King, and Eddie Garcia.

Those were it.

That's the only dancers Michael really had, at least in this particular tour.

We recreated my favorite tour, which is the 1992 Dangerous Tour.

It was the first concert that I used to watch back when I was like 12 years old, watching

the VH1 on their special MJ Days.

They used to play the Michael's greatest TV moment, the live in Bucharest, Dangerous

Tour World Tour, and the Jackson's American Dream Movie.

Because this concert is very, very special to me.

I love the fact that Thriller was all made with black light.

It had magical illusion in it, the jam, everything, just the whole flow of the show.

What we did is we went in and not only got all of the choreography exactly to the Dangerous

Tour, I contacted Travis Payne because he was one of the dancers on the Dangerous Tour

in 1993.

He sent over the complete broke down version of the jam and then realized myself and the

co-producer, which is my wife, we both looked at it and I said, I think I like the 92

choreography better and I'm breaking down the 92 choreography for jam, it took us about

a week straight breaking it down.

We made each dancer personalize to one of Michael's dancers, meaning each dancer is dressed

like one of Michael's dancers.

Wow.

Each dancer is exactly where one of Michael's dancers would be.

We gave them, we said, okay, you're LaFell Smith Jr.

Watch this gentleman here, he's in the dark blue suit and it's things like that and that's

what really sets our show apart from anything else.

At the end of the day, it's about creating an illusion of Michael Jackson.

That's why I like to refer to myself as an illusionist, not as a much an impersoner or tribute

artist.

Yeah, and I'm glad you said that too because Sally and I have been doing this together

for a court a while, Sally, much longer than I have as far as bringing acts like yourself

to our town and I've covered a lot of tribute or impersonators in that I've never, ever

seen anybody like you, Michael.

I've never seen anybody that would pull off what you do, but the detail, that's what

I keep coming back to and now talking to you, this is all adding up, it's all making

sense.

The dancers looked familiar to me, like I'm watching your stuff and I'm like, wait, I

remember that outfit, I remember this and that move and this and that, it shows, man,

it really does.

You guys really did your homework on this.

Thank you, thank you.

Yeah, we, this has been such a huge passion project.

Some of the stuff that I really wanted to create was the magic, you know, I want that

moment that makes people, that really gives you that escape.

So I don't want to give too much away, but we have a lot of special moments in the show

that really makes you go, wow, and that's something I'm really proud of.

Michael, sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to catch you off, I said, I really, I really apologize.

However you're going to say, I was going to say, I was going to give one of the things

away, like, like the 45 degree lean, you know, oh, that's the greatest dance move ever.

I think that's the greatest dance move ever, man, and I was going to ask you off here,

I didn't want to put you on the spot with it.

Oh, that is awesome, bro, that is awesome, that is really intelligent.

Thank you, that yeah, it's really cool, it's a really cool illusion.

Like I said, we went in, the great thing is about recreating a show that was from the

90s is that a lot of the effects are able to be made today, currently, that still gives

it that timeless feel and that still that you still get all of that nostalgia, which

is really cool.

I love that part of it, and boy, if there's, there's a handful of things that are rising

in popularity, nostalgia is one of those.

We love nostalgia now, more and more, that's a great point to bring up.

Michael, have you ever been to Wisconsin?

I have not, I'm really excited, and I'll actually have a day or two to really, because I'm

coming from Canada, so we're going from Canada straight there, so we'll actually have

a day or two to really hang out, so that would be cool.

You're going to enjoy it, man, and we're going to enjoy having you to town, we're going

to give you a great crowd and give you a great time here.

Thank you so much for the time, Michael.

We're going to actually play a little sample of your work now, and then we're going to

talk to Sally and let you get back to your day, but thank you so much for the time, Michael.

Oh, thank you so much, and thank you so much for having me.

You take care, and we'll see you soon.

All right, take care, thank you.

Thank you, Michael.

Well, that was just gives people a little taste of what they're going to get with Michael

Knight coming to town with the MJ, the illusion, reliving the king of pop.

Sally, what are the details we can give people about this amazing show?

This amazing show is Thursday, January 25th at 730, tickets are $44 for adults, and

$10 for students that we have sold quite a few student tickets so far, so be sure.

You bring your students along with you.

You can get these tickets either online at saverthearts.com, or you can call 715-424-2787,

or stop by and see me at 1048 Street South, Suite 101, and Wisconsin Rapids.

Our office hours are Monday through Thursday from 10 to 230.

And keep in mind, you're not only purchasing a ticket to an amazing show, you're also

helping support the arts in our community.

Help Sally and the team over there be able to bring these acts to our town.

You are supporting so much more than just taking in a great show, which it is.

At a wonderful facility, does give me an opportunity to shout out Eric Britton-Ocker at the

Performing Arts Center.

Eric usually with us for these interviews, a big thank you to him and all the work that

him and his team does over there.

And Sally, we've got a couple of minutes here to talk.

When you first came across Michael, was your impression, and how quickly did you reach

out to his team to get him to town here?

Okay, so this is a story because we originally had somebody else booked through an agency.

And they ended up having surgery back in May and canceled their season.

And I was kind of in a panic.

And the agents said, don't worry, we've got somebody, you know, we think you'll like

at least as well as the other person.

Well, when I saw his videos and his dancing, it's so amazing.

Everything about him and just learning that he had trained with Michael Jackson's peeps.

There was no question that we would replace it with him.

And I am so excited, especially, you know, I get excited scheduling my shows, but once

I talk to the people like this and hear them and get to know them a little bit, it really,

I can't wait for a couple of weeks from today.

One of the things I love about you, I love about the Arts Council, is it's made up of community

members.

And once kind of the details and some of these things get taken care of, you become a

fan just like the rest of us.

If you're just as excited as the rest of us, you're part of the community, you just cannot

wait to take these acts in and be able to see them.

It's going to be a really fun show.

This is a really nice one.

This worked out really well in a shout out to that agent, doing a really smart move, not

just leaving you hanging there and everything.

That is a really cool thing, just as a side note, does that happen often in that industry?

I'm curious.

I would say often, but occasionally, yes, I think this is probably the second time something

like this has happened in my seven and a half years here.

It's really smart on that agent and thank you for doing that.

Another cool thing I have to mention that's happening.

We have contacted Rapid School of Performing Arts.

They are bringing 10 students who are in their competition team.

They're going to work with this group, with the dancers at one o'clock, the afternoon

of the performance.

They're going to learn part of thriller and they're going to come up on stage, kind of

do their own thing for part of it, but then do some steps that they will have learned

that afternoon.

For them to offer that kind of thing, we're super excited about it.

Gigantic, thank you to them for that.

That is beautiful.

That's one of the best stories I've heard all day and will here all day.

Don't be surprised if you see some weird Italian hanging out in the background, trying to

impersonate those moves and everything.

I just, oh my God, you said thriller and I immediately got all excited about that.

That's so cool.

The kids are thrilled.

It's such a wonderful thing, his singing, his song writing and all that and everything.

And his production, we don't talk a lot about Michael Jackson's producing in his ear

for sound, but the dancing, the dancing is so key to being able to do this and pull it

off.

It's cool to hear of that for the students to get this kind of like, you know, ability

to pull in that knowledge from something like that.

Exactly.

And it again takes me back to Michael and the detail that him and his team did for something

like this.

I really appreciate him getting, letting us look behind the curtain of all of that.

That's pretty cool.

We have other great acts coming up.

I wanted to make a big shout out to Uptown coming out here in February, we're looking

forward to that.

That's going to be a great show.

That will be February 8th, Uptown, from humble beginnings in Harlem NYC, Uptown spreads

their unique perspective on Motown Soul Classics to audiences all over the globe.

We're looking forward to them coming to town.

Yep.

Absolutely.

And we have a dinner associated with that also.

So contact the Arts Council for more info.

Be sure to check that out, everybody.

And my mom and dad have been very excited about the act coming in March and we have two

X coming in March.

Yes.

March 7th.

How sweet it is.

Steve Leslie sings James Taylor.

A lot of people are going to be excited for that one.

Right.

And also in March, on March, just a couple of days later, always Olivia and Olivia Newton

John Tribute.

Yep.

Now, she was going to come with us, was she supposed to be here before and this is rescheduling

or I'm mixing her up with somebody else.

I apologize.

I think I'm thinking of something else.

We're very excited to have these two X coming March and uptown next month.

Nice work on the schedule, Sally.

Nice work on this.

If people want to find out more, how can they reach you, Stanley?

How can they find out more?

You can either go on to our website, saverthearts.com.

There's lots of info there.

Give me a call, 715-424-2787.

We appreciate you so much.

Say hi to your team for us, Eric and everybody.

Thank you.

And we will talk again real soon.

Thanks, Sally.

Find out more at saverthearts.com, saverthearts.com, and we'll be talking more about these shows

as we get closer to them.

We'll take a break and come back with more Midday Magazine on WFHR.