A mob of zombies at the University of Ottawa simultaneously dance to Michael Jackson’s Thriller.
Under a clear night’s sky and a full moon, a horde of zombies shuffle into position in front of Tabaret Hall at the University of Ottawa.
Illuminated by floodlights and flashing cameras, they slump onto the ground and the countdown begins. At 7 p.m. exactly, Michael Jackson’s Thriller starts to play, zombies awaken, and “Thrill the World Ottawa 2010” begins.
For the last four years, people around the world gathered to take part in what organizers hope this year to be the “Largest Simultaneous Thriller Dance.” Last Saturday, at 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. GMT time, 200 “Thrill the World” events happened in 30 different countries. At 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. local time, the 27 Ottawa zombies were part of the global 10,000 participants to dance to Thriller at exactly the same time.
Although fewer people participated this year than in 2009, Merissa Tse, lead co-ordinator of TTW Ottawa, is more than happy with the event.
“Everything went according to plan," she says. "Even if we didn’t break the World Record this year, it’s still cool to do a worldwide simultaneous dance, and to know you were a part of it.”
In October 2009, TTW set a new world record for the “Largest Simultaneous Thriller Dance” when 22,596 people in 264 cities from 33 countries danced together. This beat the previous record of 4,179 people in 2008 by more than five times over.
Tse believes that although numbers have been rising since 2006, the massive increase at last year’s event was due to Michael Jackson’s death in June that year.
TTW was started by Ines Markeljevic in Toronto in 2006. Having learned Thriller at the beginning of her dancing career in high school, Markeljevic realized there must be others who wanted to know the infamous dance as much her. So, at 25, Markeljevic determined to teach Thriller to anyone wanting to learn it in a way that was fully understandable regardless of dancing background.
“It’s a problem that so many people think they can’t dance,” Markeljevic says. “I wanted to give the two left-feeters of the world the confidence to dance.”
One of Markeljevic’s techniques for teaching Thriller is to name each move and have the dancers call them out whilst performing them. It is easier to build on words rather than numbers, she suggests, because numbers are abstract.
“Words give people with no dance background a point of reference,” she says. “When I accidentally started putting words to moves, like ‘shake it and an-upper,’ no one ever messed those parts up again.”
People of all ages and dancing abilities successfully learn the routine. One participant of TTW Ottawa 2009 and 2010, Marcelle Charrois, says she had wanted to learn the Michael Jackson dance since she was a little girl and was thrilled when she realized she could.
The Internet acts as a teaching resource for TTW. An online breakdown of the routine means that people who are unable to attend their local dance workshops can still learn Thriller and take part in the event on the day.
Nicole Black, now an assistant co-ordinator of TTW Ottawa, first learned Thriller from the online teaching videos in 2009.
“The videos were really helpful,” she says. “I did them two hours every night for a solid week, showed up on the day and had so much fun I decided I wanted to help out next year.”
Black is one of many who return to take part in TTW year after year. Markeljevic suggests that for some people it is becoming an annual tradition.
Tse has her own hopes for TTW Ottawa. As one of her main difficulties has been locating a venue for the final dance. “My dream is to have the dance somewhere like Parliament Hill.”