‘Thriller’ Delivers Scary, Entertaining Performance
For 10 years, Odyssey Dance Theatre group has made sure Utah audiences remember Michael Jackson’s Halloween song “Thriller.” The dance production, based on Halloween characters and themes, has two separate companies performing the program throughout Utah. This last weekend, the group made a stop at Ellen Eccles Theater. It didn’t take long for the production to generate a positive response from the audience. As soon as the word Thriller flashed across the closed curtains before the first number, the audience started cheering. From the annual pieces featuring Mrs. Frankenstein on Pointe, glow-in-the-dark tap-dancing skeletons, and a River dance massacre, ‘Thriller’ delivers a variety of entertaining pieces. Baylee Carroll, senior in family, consumer and human development said, “I like how it has every kind of dance, it is entertaining and funny.”
Artistic Director Derryl Yeager said he enjoys doing this show. “I just wanted to create an annual production that would hopefully become a financial success and provide a stabilizing force in the season,” Yeager said. “I knew we couldn’t do another Nutcracker and we thought that Halloween might provide a great reason to do a show.” The show started with four shows the first year at Kingsbury Hall selling around 900 tickets. Now, there are a total of 14 performances at Kingsbury Hall, along with performances in Ogden, Logan and St. George, where almost all the shows sell out, Yeager said.
Although the show is premised on Halloween, the theater was at times full of laughter. Before the music began in “Just a Hunch,” the hunchback interacted with the audience, offering a sort of comic relief after they had been followed and hissed at by the undead. “Jason Jam” features three serial killers dancing with knives, machetes, bats and chainsaws, but evokes laughter at the expense of the somewhat dim-witted Jason.
This year, the new work is “Dawn of Civilization,” which takes place on Mars. Martians with frog-like tongues, curly tails, and orange and black spots find something from earth.
“Audience response, whether it works with the flow of the show, determines whether a new piece will remain on the program the next year,” Yeager said.
The show is also audience interactive. While the crowd waits for the program to start, zombies wander the rows of seats and peer into people’s faces. The dancers keep straight faces and walk with limps. Later in the show, Junior Case, cast member, has the crowd standing up doing the YMCA, jumping and bopping their heads during “Live Remote.” There is even some confetti and plastic balls thrown in.
At the Ellen Eccles Theater, there was a mix of newcomers and returning patrons. Rachelle Sidwell, senior in wildlife science, and Cheryl Howell, sophomore in anthropology, went for the first time and both said they would see the show again.
Howell said her favorite was “Curse of the Mummy,” because of her interest in archeology. Mary Catherine, from Wyoming, said her favorite was “Salem’s Mass,” which was about the famous Salem witch trials. Carroll said she liked “Dem Bones” the best because clogging and tap are her favorite styles of dance.
The cast is made up of 17 dancers: 12 female and five male. “Lost Boys” and “Jason Jan” showcase the male talent. Catherine said the male dancers were superb.
Yeager said he has kept each production very similar and there are only minor differences between the separate locations.
“Salt Lake City has ‘Bubble the Clown’ and the ‘Giggle Girl,'” he said. The touring cast has ‘Remote Man.’ The rest of the show is exactly the same.”
This ensures audiences throughout the state can get the same entertaining experience, he said.
-malissa.candland@aggiemail.usu.edu