Thriller dance promotes health, community involvement

One of the few chances people can see zombies dance in Mount Pleasant is near.

People dressed as zombies, that is, but more notably the opportunity will be to dance to the late Michael Jackson’s popular song “Thriller.”

The public is welcome to both participate in the Thriller dance event and wear zombie makeup at McLaren Fitness, 2600 Three Leaves Dr.

“I don’t know if I was the idea person, but we’ve done videos before,” said Judi Swartz, exercise physiologist at McLaren Fitness. “I think it was a group idea but they said, ‘Judi, you do it.’”

Crystal Parsons, coordinator of member services, said about 120 people were signed up as of Thursday afternoon. All participants will receive a black Thriller t-shirt for the dance, which will be filmed by a team of videographers from the Central Michigan University Broadcast and Cinematic Arts department.

Rehearsals of the dance will take place at 9:30 a.m. and last for about an hour. A break before filming will give time for people who want to apply zombie make-up and rest before filming.

Swartz said Broadcast and Cinematic Arts video facilities manager Eric Limarenko and a graduate assistant will film the dance from 11 a.m. to noon. Swartz said the dance will be filmed six times, three times from the roof of McLaren Fitness and three times from the ground. The video will be cut, edited and posted to YouTube.

Swartz said Limarenko worked with McLaren Fitness in the past in making videos that involved the community. She said the idea for Thriller came about because she uses it as a warm-up song for her Zumba classes she teaches, both at McLaren and for credit at CMU.

“A lot of people have been doing parts of it in my classes,” Swartz said.

Swartz said she is not expecting the dance to be perfect, but is only hoping that the weather is good enough for people to enjoy the event.

“If everyone does everything at the same time, that’d be great,” Swartz said. “Of course, I’ll be ecstatic if everybody has fun.”