Dancers 'thrilled' to be part of worldwide event

Dance students at The Wave fitness center in Whitefish are mastering their moves in preparation for the annual Thrill the World worldwide simultaneous dance of Michael Jackson's famous choreographed masterpiece, "Thriller."

The Wave's "Thriller" group will join dancers throughout the world as they attempt to break the current record for the Guinness World Record's "World's Largest Simultaneous Dance."

That record currently belongs to 197,569 elementary school children who did the Hokey-Pokey at 681 locations across Canada in 2002, according to Thrill the World's Web site at www.thrilltheworld.com.

Now in its fourth year, Thrill The World's participant numbers have increased exponentially from the initial 62 dancers in Toronto, Canada, in 2006, which resulted in a Guinness World Record for "Largest Simultaneous Thriller Dance," to 4,179 dancers in 10 countries in 2008, which also set a Guinness record.

The tribute to Michael Jackson was founded by Ines Markeljevic, a dance choreographer and instructor in Toronto. This year, with renewed interest in Jackson since his death in June, organizers are expecting large turnouts for dance events.

In Whitefish, dancers will participate at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 24, at The Wave. The event will be videotaped as documentation that can be sent to world-record officials.

"It's been a blast," said Lynn Grossman, who along with Jacque Alexander have been teaching the "Thriller" choreography at The Wave.

The choreography can be downloaded from www.thrilltheworld.com, but is slightly different from the original music video, Grossman said. That's because Guinness World Record participants have to dance for a minimum of five minutes, but the original choreography is about two minutes long.