Jackson's highly disciplined dance virtuosity between 1983 and 1988 mirrored the physical rhythms of America's vanishing industrial era.

Watch him move. The sharp, mechanical precision of his choreography was no accident. Scholars argue that Jackson's dance vocabulary between 1983 and 1988 functioned as a 'human motor.' His performances celebrated intense physical labor just as American factories were closing down. By executing impossibly perfect, robotic movements, he offered audiences a nostalgic look at the industrial age. It was a beautiful, desperate celebration of the human body as a magnificent machine.