When arts journo Paul Panckhurst saw The Kati Rule video in which the artist dances to Michael Jackson as part of the Extended Play: art remixing music show at the Govett Brewster Art Gallery - he became overcome with nostalgia and decided to write about it.

Image: Katie Rule I'm a lover not a dancer, 2002, film still. Courtesy of the artist.

by Paul PanckhurstWhen arts journo Paul Panckhurst saw The Kati Rule video in which the artist dances to Michael Jackson as part of the Extended Play: art remixing music show at the Govett Brewster Art Gallery - he became overcome with nostalgia and decided to write about it.

Image: Katie Rule I'm a lover not a dancer, 2002, film still. Courtesy of the artist.

by Paul PanckhurstI'm a lover not a fighter," squeaked Michael Jackson in a duet with Paul McCartney in "The Girl is Mine", a song on Jackson's album Thriller (1982). Thriller was a pop tsunami with three blockbuster singles - "Beat It", "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" - that turned the world the colour of Jackson. But... what colour was that? Presumably, back then, a shade of brown or conceivably even a black.

Thriller was a black groove mating with white rock guitar in an ritzy hotel where the cleaners had emptied out the bins, freshened things up, and sprayed disinfectant everywhere.
But, as with the best of Motown in the 60s, the underlying spirit - or a spirit of some sort, or just some compelling who-knows-what - survived the pop production line. The early 80s were the golden era of Jackson.

According to an official history, his first live performance of the "moonwalk" - a trademark dance move - was in 1983.

The Australian artist Kati Rule was then aged under 10. "I'm a lover not a dancer", is the name of her artwork in the current Govett-Brewster exhibition "Extended Play: art remixing music". (The show runs from February 22 to May 4). The video shows Rule performing Jackson's dance moves from the video for the song Thriller. The original was a classic of music television; a big, typically American, pop dance number with a horror movie theme: Jackson and his grisly ghouls. Rule dances in her garage and the soundtrack is amateurs laughing at their efforts.

This is not, however, a mocking of the original. Rule moves with the accuracy and concentration of a devotee. She dances pretty good.
What registers most is how - 20 years on, and with the star removed from the performance - the choreography alone triggers a deep recognition and a swell of memories for those of a certain generation.

The triples forces of repetition, attraction and mass communication chiselled those dance moves into the brains of millions. Around the globe, people have these patterns as deeply embedded in their minds as memories of love or a childhood trauma.

Maybe Rule's dance is about how we - the fans - come to own those pieces of pop culture that take our fancy. She certainly highlights the three-way relationship between us (as we were then), us (as we are now), and the star (Mr Jackson).

Twenty years ago, we didn't realise that we were actually losing our minds to this stuff.
- Paul Panckhurst