It sounds as if Michael Balderrama may never forget working with — and simply being in the presence of — the late Michael Jackson. “It was a small slice of time, but you are impacted for your entire life to have worked with him,” says Balderrama in a recent phone interview. “Even now, I’m thinking about it, like, the hair on my arm is standing on end.
” These days, Balderrama is connected to the King of Pop as the associate global choreographer for “MJ,” the Tony Award-winning jukebox musical built on a foundation of Jackson hits that on July 16 will begin a run of 32 performances in the KeyBank State Theatre at Playhouse Square in Cleveland . The initial brush with Jackson’s brilliance came in 1996, shortly after Balderrama had moved to Los Angeles, where he quickly booked a gig as a dancer for Vanessa Williams’ performance of “Colors of the Wind” at the 68th Academy Awards. His good fortune continued when Travis Payne and LaVelle Smith Jr.
— choreographers known for working with Jackson — suddenly found themselves in need of a “tall dancer” when one of their regulars became unavailable for a project. “I went over to their apartment,” he says, “danced in their studio, interviewed with them for a couple of hours and then booked it.” “It” was the roughly 40-minute mini-movie “Michael Jackson’s Ghosts,” which counts famed horror novelist Stephen King among its story contributors.
“It was supposed to be about 20 minutes, and, .