Jacksons vs AEG - Day 7 - May 8 2013 – Summary
Katherine Jackson and Trent Jackson were in the court.
Producer/Dancer Alif Sankey testimony
Jackson Direct
Alif Sankey is a Dancer, Choreographer, and Producer. She was hired the Associate Producer for "This is It"(ABC7). First witness is Alif Sankey, a choreographer, dancer and producer. She spends early part of her testimony describing her experience.(AP)
She first Met MJ working for him as a dancer on the Smooth Criminal music tour. She blew the first audition but got a call back anyway. Her first encounter with MJ he asked her who did her eyes? She said she did and then she wanted to Melt! Sankey said that was the best job she ever had because she got to watch MJ create and see his Genius up close. It has inspired her.(ABC7) Sankey says it took around three months to shoot “Smooth Criminal” music video. Says watching Jackson work influenced her creative process. She also worked with him at a couple live performances, but never went on tour with Jackson. She was later hired to work on “This Is It.”(AP) A few moments into the video, Sankey points out she’s the woman in the brown dress to the right of Jackson. (AP)
"It was magical to work with him ... It was like living a dream.” -Alif Sankey on dancing in #MJ's "Smooth Criminal" video (LAtimes)
“We got to see Michael’s imagination come to life,” she said. “That was my first time as a dancer, as an artist, that I was completely inspired by his craft and inspired by his attention to every detail. … It was magical to work with him, just absolutely magical and I dream still to this day that I will create on that level of magic that Michael created on. It was like living a dream.” (LATimes)
jurors did hear about the pop icon's creativity during Sankey's testimony. "Michael's imagination was endless," Sankey said. "He would visualize it, and it happened. It was amazing." (CNN)
"We got to see Michael's imagination come to life," Sankey said. "That was my first time as a dancer, as an artist, that I was completely inspired by his craft and inspired by his attention to every detail. He was so detailed and he never missed a thing."Working with Jackson was "magical," she said."I dream still to this day that I will be able to create on that level of magic that Michael created," Sankey said. "It was like living a dream of working with an artist like that, and I will treasure it and have it in my memory forever." (CNN)
Sankey said she was hired at the Associate Producer for "This is It" by AEG. She had worked with Producer Kenny Ortega many years. Dancer auditions started April 6th 2009 and hundreds tried out. They hired about 100 (huge show)!!! Sankey testified that the "This is It" tour was to revive MJ's career. Show the audience something they had never seen before.(ABC7)
The "This Is It" concert would have been "a pretty big show," Sankey told jurors.
"It was going to be huge and it was going to be innovative, different," she testified. "From working with Michael in my past, I knew it had to be something that no one's ever seen. It all had to be new and pioneering." (CNN)
Sankey said she saw MJ for the first time after being hired on the last day of dancer auditions. He looked thin. (ABC7)
Sankey also spoke about Jackson’s relationship with his children. “They loved him, they loved their daddy,” she said, and spoke about sitting at a rehearsal with Paris, who kept a purse full of candy and small framed photos of her father. Jackson himself appeared eager to perform with his children around, she said. (LAtimes)
Sankey: “He was excited to show his kids, finally, to show who he was and what he was all about. He was very happy and excited.” (LAtimes)
"He shared with me that he was excited to do the show," she said. "He was excited to show his kids, finally to show them who he was, what he was all about; he was very excited about that." (CNN)
Sankey said she based some of her impressions of Jackson over the years on how he felt when they hugged. "When I hugged him, he just felt like marble," Sankey said about Jackson early in his career. "But when I hugged, when I saw him briefly in 2006, he didn't feel like that anymore. He felt thin. He just felt thin." He was thin during the "This Is It" preparations, she said, and she became concerned when he missed multiple rehearsals. (AP)
Sankey was at a wardrobe meeting with MJ when he said to her she looked good..Had she lost weight? She said she works out. MJ nice to all (ABC7)
She spoke to MJ's assistant because she noticed MJ had holes in the soles of his dancing shoes. (ABC7)
The singer showed up at one rehearsal with shoes that had holes in the soles, missed rehearsals and appeared much thinner than earlier in his career, Sankey testified.(AP)
Michael Jackson complained his body was sore to "This Is It" choreographer, Sankey testified. (LATimes)
Sankey suggested MJ stretch, have a barre installed at his house, and pilates to get 50 year old body in shape for tour. (ABC7)
In June, MJ kids came to rehearsal. Paris had a purse with candy and pix of MJ. She asked Sankey not to tell MJ about the candy.(ABC7)
Sankey also described meeting Paris Jackson while footage was being shot for the "This Is It" shows.Paris Jackson shared a secret with Sankey, saying she had brought lots of candy stuffed into her purse to the studio and didn't want her father to find out.
There were also several tiny pictures inside her purse — all of her father. "Her purse was full of candy and pictures of her daddy," Sankey said. (AP)
Dancer and choreographer Alif Sankey told a jury that MJ appeared thin and unprepared for the rigors of the shows. She testified that a month before MJ’s death, she wrote an email to tour director Kenny Ortega urging him to try to improve the singer's health and spirits. She says she never received a reply. (AP)
Sankey wrote to Ortega: "Please help me help you to get him back into that Magical Light, please let me help you help him find what was lost, his GRAIL," She wrote that she knew what she could say to Jackson that would make him respond and also offered suggestions to help lessen the pain of rehearsals.(AP)
“I wanted to be a part of him being encouraged, being enlightened, believing in himself, believing that we all believed in him, that he could do this,” Sankey said. (LATimes)
Jackson lawyer Panish asked Sankey if she saw AEG Live take any action to protect the entertainer after she expressed her concerns.
“No,” Sankey testified.
“Were you concerned that nothing was happening?” Panish asked.
“Yes,” she responded. (Law360)
Ortega, she said, was frustrated with Jackson's absences. (LAtimes) Producers expressed concern on MJ rehearsal attendance by the beginning of June. Sankey was worried. Sankey testified MJ was not at rehearsal for the first week of June. He came to rehearsal June 6th. That was after a tough love meeting with MJ and the show Director and Producer that Sankey said was tough love. The Director sent MJ home on June 19th after his costume fitting according to Sankey. She met with Director after. Sankey and Director cried together after MJ left because of their concern for him and his physical condition. So thin... On her way home, she called Director and screamed into the phone that MJ was dying and someone had to do something. She said he had to go to the hospital. She made Director promise to do something. (ABC7)
On her way home, Sankey stopped her car to call Ortega "because I had a very strong feeling that Michael was dying." "I was screaming into the phone at that point," Sankey testified. "I said he needs to be put in the hospital now." (CNN)
"I kept saying that 'Michael is dying, he's dying, he's leaving us, he needs to be put in a hospital,'" Sankey said. "'Please do something. Please, please,' I kept saying that. I asked him why no one had seen what I had seen. He said he didn't know." (CNN)
“I said, 'He needs to be put in the hospital now,' ” Sankey said. “He kept listening to me because I kept going. I kept saying, ‘Michael’s dying, he’s dying.’”Sankey, who was emotional and paused during her testimony, said she begged Ortega to do something.
“Please, please. I kept saying that. I asked him, ‘Why is no one seeing what I’m seeing?’ (LATimes)
Ortega send a series of e-mails early the next morning that resulted in a meeting at Jackson's house between Jackson, Dr. Conrad Murray, AEG Live President Randy Phillips and Ortega. (CNN)
Sankey testified that the previous night, Jackson had been at rehearsal for a costume fitting but was sent home because he “was not looking good or feeling good.” (LATimes) According to associate producer Alif Sankey.Jackson, who was at the rehearsal for a costume fitting, appeared "extremely thin" and "was not speaking normally" at the June 19, 2009 (CNN)
Afterward, Sankey said that Ortega was worried about Jackson, who mentioned God was speaking to him. ”MJ told Kenny Ortega that "god was speaking to him," Sankey testified Both became emotional after discussing their concern for Jackson. (LAtimes) Sankey testified that she and Ortega cried together after Jackson left. (CNN) Michael Jackson's appearance and state of mind were so disturbing days before his death it caused producers to burst into tears at a rehearsal Sankey said (CNN)
“[Jackson] was not speaking normally to Kenny,” Sankey testified. “I was very concerned. I was highly concerned that night.” (Law360)
“[Michael] didn’t understand why God was speaking to him. We were both crying. We were crying because he seemed — he was not speaking normally to Kenny.”(LATimes)
"God keeps talking to me," Michael Jackson told Kenny Ortega six days before dying (CNN)
MJ was at rehearsal on June 23rd and performed most of the concert. MJ showed up for Rehearsal on the 24th wrapped in a huge blanket. Rehearsal was at the Staples Center. (ABC7)
Jackson's last rehearsal was at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles on June 24, 2009. Security camera video shown to the jury Wednesday showed him walking with a blanket wrapped around him as he passed Sankey.
"He didn't look good," she testified. "I asked him if he was cold and he said 'Yes.'"
Jackson sang two songs that last night on stage: "Thriller" and "Earth Song," she said.
"He did it," Sankey said. "He went through it. He wasn't in full performance mode." (CNN)
On June 25th, the company was rehearsing at Staples. When Sankey arrived, she was told MJ was in the hospital. The Director kept the company rehearsing despite MJ hospitalized. Cell phones went off and no one answered...they kept working. (ABC7)
Sankey said she was standing next to Ortega at a rehearsal the next afternoon when Randy Phillips called to tell him Jackson was dead. "Kenny collapsed in our arms," she said. (CNN) The director, Kenny Ortega, took the call from Randy Phillips of AEG what MJ had died. Sankey says Ortega collapsed. (ABC7)
Sankey and Ortega went back to an office and cried. Then Ortega got the company into a circle and told them MJ had died. (ABC7)
AEG cross
On Cross Examination Attorney for AEG questioned Sankey on how close she was to MJ. She testified that she loved MJ but she really wasn't close to MJ. (ABC7)
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Makeup artist Karen Faye is going to be tomorrow's witness.