Jackson 5

Class Act: the jazz life of choreographer Cholly Atkins,

by Cholly Atkins

BACK TO FREELANCING
We had a lot of success with Artist Development un-
til the groups started to feel their prosperity. In other
words, after three or four years, most of the acts became
complacent because they were making more money, had
more fame, and everything was a big party. We’d schedule the different
artists and they wouldn’t show up, so the personnel department started
asking why certain tunes weren’t choreographed. Then they would get
on the artists about it.

Finally, Berry sent individual notices to everybody informing them
that the company had decided to stop providing those services and if
they felt they wanted grooming in the future, they would have to pay
for it. Well, all the artists were upset about it, but his decision was
final. So that’s the way it was set up in ’70, and by the end of ’71 most
of the lesser artists just stopped going to Artist Development altogeth-
er because Motown started to concentrate solely on the ones that were
making it.

The Jackson Five had come into the picture. I never
worked directly with them, but they used to stand in the wings during
performances, and at Motown they would sit on the stairs and watch
me rehearse the other groups. Marlon had such a photographic mem-
ory he could duplicate the moves almost immediately. The Temps
came to me and said, “You’ve given them all our routines!”

Tagged as: Celebs Motown, Charles 'Cholly' Atkins, dance history, Jackson 5

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