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There are many recorded instances of the moonwalk, Similar steps are reported as far back as 1932, used by Cab Calloway. The origin is the pantomime exercise "Marche sur place" created by mime masters Etienne Decroux and Jean-Louis Barrault and first recorded on film for Children of Paradise in 1944/45. In 1955 it was recorded in a performance by tap dancer Bill Bailey. He performs a tap routine, and at the end, backslides into the wings. The French mime artist, Marcel Marceau, used it throughout his career (from the 1940s through the 1980s), as part of the drama of his mime routines. In Marceau's famous "Walking Against the Wind" routine Marceau pretends to be pushed backwards by a gust of wind.
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