Thrills after dark

So, I'm not much of a dancer. Two left feet doesn't even begin to describe me. I have a pretty hard time doing anything with my legs beyond running and climbing. I'd say I was clumsy if I didn't have such excellent balance. I even find it difficult to switch my weight from one side to the other. Rhythm utterly escapes me.

Yet I am also a child of the 80's. MTV (you know, back when they actually played music) very effectively brainwashed me. And it was the anthems of Michael Jackson that most effectively planted a dance bug deep into my subconscious. We all wanted to moonwalk when I was a kid.

Thus, when someone said, "Hey, come do Thriller with me," there was no way I could turn it down.

Next thing I know I'm down at OMSI rehearsing. Our dance instructor took us through a lot of the original choreography from the video but with a slight twist to match our dance space, the cut of the song, and the whims of an artist. We did this for several weeks, culminating in a visit to our teacher's normal stomping grounds, the Diva Den. This may not come as a surprise to you, but most of the people participating were women, and normally the Diva Den is sans males, but this training was a special exception. That's right gentlemen, I have visited the forbidden inner sanctum!

Why were we doing this? All this bending of rules, practice, and hard, sweaty work? Well, the last Wednesday of every month is OMSI After Dark, an adults-only visit to the hands-on museum with a special theme. And just what was the theme we were preparing for? It was "I love the 80's" night. So we dressed in our John Hughes best and headed to the event.

And what is the 80's without music videos? Nothing!

So there was a dance floor where some of the greatest New Wave classics were played on the big screen. And without announcement we broke out into "spontaneous" dance when the Thriller video came on. Some people got excited and asked if they could join in. I said if they could keep up they were welcome to it.

In this video I'm that guy at the back of the dance group, in the upper right of the screen, with the hat, white shirt and vest. You know, the one flubbing all the dance moves and such.

And that's not even the end of the story. Because all of this took place last year. This year, someone said "Hey, come do Thriller with me." And the whole thing started again.

This time we had fewer practices and a longer, more complex routine (nearly twice as long and about a third less repetitive). Rather than the choreography of the Diva Den, we had the dance as told by Thrill the World. And the OMSI After Dark theme? The end of the world. So we dressed in our zombie best and had another Thrill.

Gathering in a back room to finish preparations and have a final run through, a couple of us got interviewed by the local news station. Our lovely instructor went first. She is an organizer for, and talked about the, Portland Zombie Walk, from which tonight's event grew. I volunteered to go next and talked a bit about other zombie activities in town. Our interviewer then said "This isn't your first zombie rodeo then?" To which I could only reply, "No, but those zombie bulls sure are hard to ride." We promptly ended the interview so the camera man could bust up laughing. There was also a group of zombified Disney Princesses. The Snow White was the only other interviewee before we had to make final plans.

We then did a quick zombie crawl around the museum to end up in front of a live band. We staggered around until they finished their song and we promptly collapsed to the floor. Everyone but Michael Jackson. Then a full six minute version of the song started and we danced as the crowd continued to gather round, film and photograph us. I kept up with the choreography much better this time and we pulled things off beautifully.

The aftermath of this event is that it continues to give me more confidence on the dance floor, as I have a better sense of how to make my body, even my legs, get jiggy with it.