RIYADH: A tribute to the “King of Pop” Michael Jackson, “Michael Lives Forever,” is coming to Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai on July 18.
The show will feature tribute artist Rodrigo Teaser, who has worked with Jackson’s choreographer Lavelle Smith Jr; Jennifer Batten, who played on all three of Michael Jackson’s world tours as his lead guitarist; and vocal director Kevin Dorsey, who worked with Jackson for 25 years.
Teaser, who started impersonating Jackson when he was 9, told Arab News: “Michael passed through a lot of bad things, and even in those moments, Michael was never a bad person.
“He was not a guy that cursed or was rude. Even when the world was bad with him, he always had a good message … This is something that Michael taught me, and I really try to bring that with me on stage.”
The show will feature tribute artist Rodrigo Teaser. (Supplied)
Much like Jackson, Teaser began dancing from a young age as a form of self-expression.
“As a child, I was so shy that I had problems at school too, because I was afraid to ask (questions). My mom said that at the same time, I was the type of kid that locked myself in my room and danced the whole day.”
He started learning to sing to better understand his dance. “Even in my teenage years, I was very shy. I didn’t feel comfortable in school or surrounded by people that I didn’t know. I wasn’t comfortable even saying hello.
“So the music and the dance and all those steps was always the way I had to make people pay attention and I started to make friends,” he said. “When I talk with some (Michael) fans around the world, I can see that I was not the only one.”
Teaser went on to connect with those fans, performing for audiences across South America, the US, Asia, the Middle East, and even at the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 before an audience of 40,000.
“Once you perform something bigger than you’ve performed before, you are invited to bigger places,” he said.
He was performing in smaller venues without a live band for a while, but “when Michael passed, I thought ‘okay, let’s do a concert.’ Me and my wife produced a concert with a live band, and we thought that would be like a goodbye.
“In my mind, since I had been doing this my whole life, I thought it’s fair to do something bigger to say goodbye, and we started to produce the concert with that mindset … It was the total opposite. People wanted to see something like this because Michael was not here anymore,” he said.
One concert led to another, and Teaser slowly became recognized as one of the world’s most respected Michael Jackson tribute artists.
Rodrigo Teaser on stage. (Supplied)
The “Michael” film, which became the highest-grossing biopic of all time and the first to surpass $1 billion at the global box office, has led to an interesting phenomenon. Older people flocked to theaters to relive their memories while those younger are discovering the magic behind his artistry.
“We have a lot of artists like Usher, Bruno Mars, Ne-Yo, all around the world that like to try to move like Michael or do something vocally like Michael, but Michael still is ground zero,” Teaser said.
Teaser does not underplay the weight of paying tribute to an iconic artist who defined a whole genre, and he notes that the most important aspect is being honest with the audience.
“I’m not trying to be Michael. I always keep that in my mind, and I literally said that on the stage. We kind of built a way to tell my story during the concert because I think that’s the point that makes the audience create a bond with me, is when they realize that I’m also a fan,” he said.
“I think that the most beautiful part of the whole thing is I still bring with me the same feeling that I had when I was a child. When you are a child and you put on a hero costume or a princess costume, you believe that you are special, and I still bring that with me.”
