The dead can dance all right
“It’s OK if you come in late,” Joy Bartel said to us dancers in rehearsal about the cue to a move. “It just means you’re more dead than everyone else.”
We were a few weeks from Halloween, when our truly ragtag troupe would take to the streets to dance the moves from one of the scariest music videos of all time: Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
The flashmob practice of performing the zombies’ choreography has become an international phenomenon, beginning with a Guinness World Records entry in Toronto in 2006 and since then drawing in thousands of people, from Ukraine to Sierra Leone and the Philippines to Honduras. Many learn the moves from a website called Thrill the World; others from local dancers keen on creating fun.
Bartel, whose shock of spiky blond hair and teaching background make her a natural flashmob boss, arranged for twice-weekly practices at Logan Health and Fitness starting early last month. This was her third year coaching dozens of seasoned dancers and newbies, including tips on dress (“Get to the thrift stores before they’re picked over”) and facial expression (“Say the ‘ha’ because it looks like a scream”).
The first year we traveled loosely after a meetup performance at Spirit Halloween, then on to Moose’s Saloon, where it was the first time a guy I didn’t know outright bought me a drink in appreciation.
We zigzagged to many more venues, from the tiny stage at the KM Bar to friends’ house party on the east side. When we filed in looking like your average Halloweeners, no one raised an eyebrow, until the music started and the synchronized routine began. Afterward our hungry corps of corpses gratefully hoovered up the party food and Lily, one of the hosts said, “How will I beat this next year?”
She didn’t have to — we showed up again.
The second year we got better. We made a map of destinations to avoid losing a few dancers here and there. One couple dressed as escaped inmates of a mental institution — flesh-colored bodysuits under blood-spattered hospital gowns and all (er, almost all).
At one of the first stops, the Brannigan’s bartender shouted to me over the din, “You’re not coming in here to blast that music.” Before I could answer, Bartel walked up, heaved the boombox onto the bar, smiled as much as her makeup allowed, and pressed play.
We quickly sprinkled ourselves among the packed tables. The sound of a door creaking open and a wolf howling, then the beat came in. Customers looked around and saw zombies everywhere. After the six minutes, one fellow sat soaking it in. He said, “That was wonderful,” pronouncing every syllable.
Also last year about this time, I helped the people from the Foundation for Montana History load out their gear from the museum after a day of 200-plus antique appraisals of everything from rugs to busts.
As we closed the hatch of their car they sighed with relief and pondered whether to go out or get to their hotel. Then they brightened.
They said, “Last night we were at Brannigan’s, and the place just came alive with all these people dancing to ‘Thriller.’”
Margaret E. Davis, executive director of the Northwest Montana History Museum, can be reached at mdavis@dailyinterlake.com.