FAQ

Got a question? Hopefully our FAQ can answer it for you!

• What is Thrill The World?

Thrill The World is a worldwide attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the Largest Simultaneous Dance with Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Thousands of people in cities around the world will learn the “Thriller”, dance and perform it together on the day that Thrill the World takes place.

• What’s the purpose of Thrill The World?

We want to bring dance to people all over the world. We want to remind everyone that before you believed you couldn’t (dance) you did. We want to connect the world, in fun, celebration and dance. And to show that it CAN be done. It’s not impossible. It just hasn’t been done yet. “Thriller” is the best way to reach the most number of people. As a bonus, on Halloween night parties, you’ll get to feel like a superstar in a movie when suddenly everyone erupts in choreographed dance!

In addition to sharing the joy of dance, the celebration of community and the passion for living, we created Thrill the World such that each event could be used to raise money for a local charity so that the giving continues past just the steps of the dance, past the hands of Thrill the World to you, the participants. We want you to experience the gift of giving.

And lastly, our hope is that by you witnessing and/or being a part of Thrill the World, you will see for yourself that any dream, vision, idea, passion you have CAN be realized. Who would’ve thought we could inspire the world to dance with us? At the same time! Nothing is impossible.  Impossible just means it hasn’t been done yet.  Do the impossible!

• Why “Thriller”?

2007 marked the 25th anniversary of the release of the “Thriller” album. It is still a popular and well-known video that crosses boundaries of language, culture, and geography. We believe that this is largely due to the amazing choreography - do the “roar” move anywhere, at any point, and without fail someone will yell, “Thriller!” because the movements are so iconic and easily recognizable.

Best of all, “Thriller” is an easy dance to learn, when taught the way Thrill The World teaches it. We could do the Chicken Dance, or Hokey-Pokey, or the Macarena for a Guinness World Record… yes. But when Halloween rolls around, and you’re out at your Halloween party, you know “Thriller” will come on at midnight. And this year, you can have a Movie-Moment when people you don’t know join you on the dance floor to do this ‘thrilling’ dance!

• Why is “Thriller” so popular? What is it about “Thriller” that makes people like it?

  1. Michael Jackson. Need we say more? Okay, well here’s more…
  2. Zombies always have been and always will be cool!
  3. Dance always has been and always will be cool!
  4. A sick bass beat always help make a song popular. It gets locked in your head!
  5. Let’s not forget that this music video was revolutionary for it’s time (and is still unparalleled today!). The first video that was a mini-movie, not just shots of the performer, well, performing on stage!
  6. The special effects were quite scary and still scare the kids I show the video to today!
  7. And lastly, it became a Halloween party staple song. Since Halloween shows up on the calendar every year, we are guaranteed to hear the song at least once a year for many a Halloween to come... and that’s not a bad thing.

• Where did the idea for Thrill The World come from?

Thrill the World Creator & Director, Ines Markeljevic, had read an article a few days before attending the Landmark Forum in October 2005. The title read “Thriller at Dundas Square”. She thought that a large “Thriller” dance had happened, but it didn’t! “Phew! Glad I didn’t miss it,” she said to herself. It wasn’t until she was in her Landmark Forum a few days later that Ines had the idea that if it did not happen, then she would make it happen… and it would be a worldwide “Thriller” dance. Other programs at Landmark Education contributed to Ines being audacious and committed to take on such a massive vision and to do whatever it takes to make it happen. 

• What is the current record for the Guiness World Record’s World’s Largest Simultaneous Dance?

The current record is 197,569 elementary school students doing the Hokey-Pokey in 681 locations across Canada in April 2002. 

• What is the current record for the Guiness World Record’s Largest Thriller Dance?

Last we checked, Thrill Toronto 2006 holds the official and first record for Largest Thriller Dance with 62 participants. The event took place on October 29, 2006 at the Harbourfront Community Centre in Toronto, Canada. Participants learned the dance in 2 hours, rehearsed for 2 hours, then did the dance.
If you’d like to break this record let us know and we’ll help you do it! Seriously! We will! 

• How are you funding this project?

Any money that goes into the project has come from the generous pockets of friends of Ines Markeljevic who believe in her and her vision. Thrill The World is always looking for partnerships or sponsors.  If your company is interested in being involved in a global community dance project that is inspiring others to break down barriers, connect with neighbors and strangers alike, contribute to helping humanity, and supporting other people to step up as leaders, visionaries, and creators… then please contact us. 

• How are you going to get the word out?

Word of mouth.People will tell people who will tell people who will then tell more people and so on… just as they have been since this project began.  For the most part, word-of-mouth has been through online communications such as YouTube, MySpace, Facebook.com, BlogTV.ca, community message boards, emails between friends, search engine results and other social networking sites. Local press has helped in some places too.
Occasionally the Thrill The World zombie crew would get in gear and wander the downtown streets handing out flyers and dancing Thriller till they can’t dance no more!

• How can people Learn The Dance?

You can learn the dance right here on the website. Our Learn the Dance section will teach you everything you need to know using videos, audio and the dance script. You can also buy our teaching DVD for the ultimate lesson in your own living room.

• Why do you use words? Can you do it with counts?

The script has been written to make it easier for dancers of all skill levels to learn. If you want to use counts, you can, but we recommend our script.

• Do we have to use the Thrill the World songs on the website? Can we use our own Thriller song?

The version you need to use for your dance is the 5 minutes 58 seconds long version of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. And that one only. Some CD’s have slightly different lengths, so if yours is 5 minutes 57 or 59 seconds, then that is the correct one.
Make sure you check our audio page to download the versions for learning.

• The choreography in the Thrill the World Teaching Videos looks different than the music video! Why!?

The choreography is a bit different from the music video. The Thrill the World choreography is true to the music video but the order does differentiate. The reason for this is that for a Guinness World Record participants have to dance for a minimum of 5 minutes. The original choreography is approximately 2 minutes long.

Secondly, the radio version of the song is required as per Guinness guidelines and it is easier to dance to versus a long instrumental song where you can’t hear the break in different dance sections. And of course, the radio version of the song is what you will hear when you go out to a nightclub or Halloween party. The only time I heard the music video song of Thriller played is when I brought the CD to do a show for Halloween. Now everyone who knows the Thrill The World dance can rush the dance floor and erupt spontaneously into a choreographed dance just like in a movie!

In terms of the actual movements… We have done our best to replicate the movements from the music video. You can find many peoples’ interpretations in online videos. The closest version to Thrill the World that we have found is the famous Wedding Thriller. The groom learned the moves by watching the original video over and over again, as did we 10 years ago.

There are only 8 counts from the music video that are not in the Thrill The World version because they would not fit with the timing of 32 count sections of choreography, and one head movement on the ‘booty bounce’ that has been omitted because we found the average person finds it challenging to maintain not only a
timing with the feet, and the pelvis movement but to then add a head movement where your eyeline changes…! For most people it’s too much! When you perform Thriller outside of your Thrill The World event you can add the ‘head down’ back in!

The only other minor adaptation we had to make was to ensure the movements evenly filled the 32 count sections of music. In order to do that, a few moves had to be repeated 4 times versus the original
3 times ("down-ha"), or 8 times versus the original 4 times ("snap"). The most important thing for Thrill The World was to keep integrity of the choreography as true to the original as possible while also finding a balance between making it accessible for the average person to learn the dance and participate in Thrill The World.

If you want to see the differences, then we’ve got a whole video dedicated to explaining this in full, over in our videos section.

• Why is it at that time?

Thrill The World will be held at exactly the same moment all over the world, meaning different times of the day depending on where you live.

• Can we do it on either day? At any time?

No, because then your dance wouldn’t be synchronised with the others taking place and it wouldn’t count towards the World Record attempt.

• Do we NEED a charity?

No you don’t. Although it can’t hurt to do some good in the process of having fun - more over on the charity page.

• Do we have to apply to Guinness?

No. Providing you register your event with us and follow the rules outlined in our event starter kit, then you need not worry. We do that bit. 

Thrill the World 2008
Thrill the World DVD
Inessens.com