Because after a long time yakking about it, this year I'm actually going to participate in Thrill the World!
The LA event takes place Oct. 24 in the giant, blinky, freshly-minted LA Live mall the city fathers and their developer buddies built downtown. Practice sessions have been going on throughout the region in public spaces such as parks & libraries, at businesses, in homes and I've heard of a couple of ambushed parking lots, but my schedule is such that I didn't have time to hit one up until last night.
What fun!
Here we are about to start the sixth or seventh run-through (there's tons more people behind me and off to the right. Most were locals, but I talked to people who came in from Pasadena, Long Beach and the IE just for this. Wowie.):
More than one person on the ground looking up at the jet black sky blazing with arclights from the surrounding towers went 'wow, it's so pretty up there'. Our city is a fabulocity of urban. We who live in it tend not to lay on the ground and look up.
I didn't take a lot of CrackBerry shots due to not being able to take pictures and concentrate on not screwing up shoulder-step-nothing-step-shoulder-shoulder-back-shoulder at the same time.
The instructors were a combination of pro dancers and TTW veterans, and they were Made of Awesome. This session kind of broke into two groups. One was lead by a woman called The Queen Zombie, a pro dancer who was lithe, gorgeous, personable, flexible. The other was lead by a guy whose name I got, but did not write down, so by the time I got home I forgot it. It started with an M. Update! His name is Mahdroo.
The Queen Zombie started off slowly, but then moved at a pro pace that I could not keep up with. Think A Chorus Line - here are the moves, got it? here are the next moves, go - which was uber-cool to watch, but left my I'm Not One Of Those Black People Who Can Dance, Actually, in the dust.
Then I noticed the guy in a green T-shirt off to the left, leading a small group with whom he was breaking things down slowly using mnemonic tricks. One of the people near in my group joked "that's the remedial class." And I was all o really? Yay! and shifted over into his group. For me, that made all the difference, even though I'm still kind of sucky with everything that comes after down-clap-slide-set-shift-roar-stomp. I'll figure it out by showtime. The two groups would merge for complete run-throughs lead by Queen Zombie.
Here's me with M and the cheery guy to whom I loaned a pen (but I didn't write down his name, either..his T-shirt reads "free hugs" which immediately made me think warm fuzzy thoughts of CCI) after 2.5 hours of practice. You can see M in this video from tv news shot that morning. He's the one in the top hat.
I wanted a pic with the Queen, but didn't get one. Though it will be a zoo that day, I'll try to get one with her come showtime, because she is indeed made of Fabulous.
Basically, what the instructors do is teach you the dance cold. These volunteer veteran dancers - pro and enthusiast - are sprinkled throughout all of the practice sessions in the region. They know they're dealing largely with everyday people; their approach is one of positivity; they don't care if you're not a dancer, they just want you to have fun and do your best. They are there to help you bring your A-Game. I'm saying this because the TTW homeport has a bit of Stern Messaging about how exact you need to be with the dancing, which could scare folks off. You don't have to be perfect dancer. You do have to be committed to it though, and if you are your ! Woo Joy ! will come through in your performance and you won't suck as bad as you think you do.
I think anyone who would think of participating is already There with their whole heart, and probably not as bad as they think as far as their dancing abilities. Once the group gathers for show, and the energy is crackling among all and the group mind forms? You'll be fine. (But you do need to practice ahead of time so you can tune in. You can't Grock if you're not prepared to pick up the Frequency. Ask Kenneth. He'll tell you all about that part.) This is preparation:
Anywho, for the LA Thriller dance the dress code is Red Carpet Zombies! Which makes sense. Era doesn't matter, style does. The main firm rule is no T-shirts. The second rule is don't wear anything that will hurt your feelings once the costuming people throw blood all over it and shred it. If I had gotten off my ass over the past 1.5 years and made myself a full set of Victorians, that's what I'd wear next week. But I haven't, so I will be wearing my $8 do-over prom dress, since it was purchased over the summer with zombie action streetwork in mind. (Rev. Billy has a choir. I dream of a mobile social justice strikeforce comprised of zombies.) I will also clay my dreads that morning, with full knowledge that I will be dealing with clay in my hair for at least three weeks after. TOTALLY worth it.
What else? Oh! What I didn't realize until I showed up is that LA Live still has the MJ panels from the events that happened after his death still on site, mixed in with new panels for the soon to be released rehearsal footage/film. People wrote tributes all over the new as they had the old:
So. Thrill The World is probably happening somewhere in your area on Oct. 24 and 25. If there's not one in your area, well, bring the rain yourself! That's the glory of this type of thing - you can join in with 2 or 200 people. Here's a series of videos to help you. If your are within striking distance of Los Angeles, join in with the home team!
Because I will never be other than what I am, what was one huge thing I immediately noted about just this one practice for the home team? Latinos, Blacks, Filipinos, Whites, Mulits, all gathered together trying to figure out the dance and having a great time. I've seen pictures of what's happened at some of the other practice sessions, and most of them maintain that diversity.
I love this town!
Update! A very small part of the Santa Monica practice group on Saturday, lead by a guy from Africa. You can't see him in the shot because he's at the front with the non-remedial group. The guy in black was the remedial group leader:
Days later update! So many people showed up for the rehearsal in the Valley (they can call it North Hollywood all they want, but we on The Other Side Of The Hill know the score) that the room in this dance studio was over capacity, and they had to open up another room.
Even later update! The organizers also put together something called Express Practices. These were 1-hour sessions held in corp-heavy areas during lunch hour! How considerate is that?! One was held Friday in downtown LA in a grassy area in front of the Central Library. Here is our instructor manipulating one of the THREE security guys who showed up from Maguire Properties, trying to tell us to go away. This had a happy ending, mainly due to how she handled it. She told the security guys to get their supervisors down here, probably knowing that would take a while, and then just had us quietly working through the moves while they were dealing with that. Eventually they gave up, but left two security guards in place in case we - I dunno, zombie rioted or something - and we finished our practice. The privatization of public spaces thing that some of us rage about and the rest of you go Who Cares? Small example of why that's a problem. Small, less serious example of why this kind of thing (citizen use of public-yet-private spaces) has ended up in the California Supreme Court. For the record, the security guards who showed up were fabulous, in that they did not do what they could have done about us dancing on their grass in front of the city library. More than that I will not say.
Moving on, here is a sucky CrackBerry night shot one of the final rehearsals at Pan Pacific Park down on Beverly. Three groups of zombies dancing at starter/intermediate/advanced levels. We had a beautiful moon above. At this moment I can't remember if it was waxing or waning, and I don't feel like looking it up, but it was gorgeous. One of the dancers who hit up an outdoor session in Santa Monica earlier in the week said that while they were Thrilling, the marine layer rolled in, as it does in that part of the region, and they Thrilled through deep fog.
