紐時賞析／芭蕾舞編舞家執導麥可傑克森音樂劇 獲10項東尼獎提名

‘MJ’: Dancing the Pain, and Dancing the Pain Away

麥可傑克森音樂劇舞出／離真我

Irritatingly, yet predictably, “MJ: The Musical,”directed by ballet choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, has been nominated for 10 Tony Awards. It will run for ages. Michael Jackson — for all his flaws — is still Michael Jackson.

令人不悅但可預見的，由芭蕾舞編舞家爾惠登執導的《MJ：音樂劇》獲得10項東尼獎提名。該劇將長期上演。麥可傑克森即便有很多缺點，仍是麥可傑克森。

But the production does have something to show about Jackson’s dancing body in all of its articulate anxiety. It made me think: What happened to that body when the boy became a man? How did his dancing change? Was something of his internal landscape exposed in his dancing for all to see? Did we ever really see it?

但這部作品確實展現出傑克森舞動身體中所有清楚表達的焦慮。這讓我思考，當這個男孩長大成人，他的身體發生什麼變化？舞蹈如何改變？在他的舞蹈中，是否顯露出他內心的某個心境？我們真的看出來了嗎？

When he was alive and building his pop canon of music and dance, it wasn’t always so easy to grasp how, beyond the nervous twitches of the choreography, his spirit was reflected in his dancing.

當他還在世並建構他的流行音樂和舞蹈經典，除了編舞的緊張抽搐，並不容易理解他的精神是如何反映在他的舞蹈中。

He was always hiding. His costumes were armor, masking his body, his interior life and even, for all of his extraordinary prowess, his physicality. In a sense, he made it possible for his impersonators to exist by crafting and perpetuating a Michael Jackson that anyone could borrow and put on. Like a rhinestone glove. Or a moonwalk.

他總是在躲藏。他的服裝是盔甲，隱藏他的身體、他的內心，甚至他的肉體，即便他擁有非凡的力量。從某種意義上，他讓模仿他的人得以存在，因為他創造一個任何人都能借用與模仿的麥可傑克森。就像一雙鑲鑽手套，或是一個月球漫步。

The Broadway musical tries its best to focus on Jackson, the perfectionist artist, MJ, as the adult Jackson is listed in the Playbill. For Little Michael, tormented by his father, dance is an escape; for the older MJ, it’s a way for his body to scream in ways he couldn’t with words.

這齣百老匯音樂劇盡力聚焦於這位完美主義藝人、在節目單上簡稱MJ的成年傑克森身上。對於被父親折磨的小麥可來說，跳舞是逃避，對年長的MJ而言，這是他的身體以一種無法用言語表達的方式來尖叫。

The older MJ, in the show, fights for rigid precision — movement phrases are knotty, spiky, full of angles, while Little Michael is smooth and enviably relaxed.

劇中，年長的MJ力求嚴格的精確度，舞句複雜、尖銳、充滿角度，而小麥可則是流暢與令人欣羨的輕鬆。

That unselfconscious fluidity throws into relief the rigidity and the constraint of MJ, as played by Myles Frost. Frost’s dancing accuracy is extraordinary; it reveals a body turning in on itself and hardening — lonely, brittle, concave. The tipped hat and rounded shoulders weren’t just about Jackson imitating one of his idols, Bob Fosse. Weren’t they also a way to hide (and guard) himself from the world?

這種不自覺的流暢讓MJ的刻板與束縛獲得釋放，在劇中由邁爾斯．佛洛斯特飾演。佛洛斯特的舞蹈精準非凡，展現一個自我封閉與僵硬的身體，孤獨、脆弱與凹陷。尖帽和圓肩不僅是傑克森在模仿他的偶像鮑伯佛西，也是種隱藏（和保護）自己不被世界發現的方式嗎？

It’s impossible to know who Jackson really was. “MJ” delivers yet another impersonation of the man we saw onstage and in videos. Often a dancing body reveals a certain truth about a person, but in Jackson’s case, dancing might have been one more thing to hide behind, like another costume; it was a place he could control his body. He could be himself or the person he wanted to be: strong, powerful, sexy. Maybe the dancing body was the man, or his fantasy of himself.

傑克森究竟是什麼樣的人，我們無法知道。「MJ」再次模仿了我們在台上與影片中看到的那個人。跳舞的身體通常揭示了一個人的某些真相，但在傑克森的例子中，跳舞可能是另一件要隱藏的東西，就像另一套服裝一樣，是他能夠控制自己身體的地方。他可以做他自己或是他想成為的人：強壯、有力、性感。也許跳舞的身體就是那個人，或是他幻想成為的人。

文／Gia Kourlas 譯／陳韋廷