Zombie dancers aim for world record - Mon Oct 30, 10:29 AM
TORONTO (CBC) - A group of people dressed as zombies re-enacted the music video to Michael Jackson's Thriller on Sunday in what they hope will set a world record.
Sixty people descended on Toronto's Harbourfront Community Centre in zombie makeup and shredded clothes to perform the iconic dance moves in what the organizer hopes will be the first of many performances.
"This isn't just a one-time thing, I want to take it to different cities and get people to participate in the same community event," choreographer Ines Markeljevic told CBC Arts Online.
Markeljevic was inspired to organize the performance after misinterpreting a headline detailing the annual Toronto zombie walk, a similar event in its fourth year in which people dress up as zombies and walk through the city.
"I saw the headline a year ago and it was 'Thriller at Zombie Walk' and I thought they had all done the dance and I was upset I wasn't a part of it," she said. After realizing the dance was not part of the zombie walk she decided to conduct one herself.
Whether the dance establishes a world record remains to be seen. Markeljevic said she and the Guinness World Record people planned to create a new category for "Largest Thriller Dance" to separate it from other dances. For example, the largest group Irish dance according to Guinness had 7,664 participants in the city of Cork, Ireland, last year.
Markeljevic fell short of her goal of 200 for the Thriller dance, but said she is sending photos of the event in the hopes Guinness might publish them on Guinness World Record day, held this year on Nov. 9.
Director John Landis's video for Thriller was one of the first music videos to have a narrative storyline and featured both the group choreography of Jackson and the dancing zombies, as well as a memorable narration sequence delivered by horror actor Vincent Price.
