Thrill the World Portland Dance Practice

Thrill the World Portland is back at Irving Park this October, with the main dance happening Saturday, October 24, at 3 PM. If you've never heard of it, it's a worldwide event where people gather to perform the zombie dance from Michael Jackson's Thriller video all at once. The name is a play on Heal the World, and the whole thing started in Toronto in 2006, when Ines Markeljevic taught 62 zombies the choreography and set the first Guinness World Record for the Largest Thriller Dance in one location. By 2007, it had grown to 1,722 people across 80 cities in 17 countries.

In Portland, the dance is run by volunteers, and the city claims to be one of only three places—alongside Seattle and the village of Piper City, Illinois—to have danced every single year the event has been held. Over two decades, it's gathered around 1,250 dancers and raised nearly $5,000 for local nonprofits, with Hygiene4All as this year's beneficiary.

If you want to join in, you'll need to learn the steps first. Practices run every Saturday and Sunday from 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM through October 18, so you can drop in and get the moves down before the big day. The dance itself takes place at the Irving Park covered basketball court, at NE 7th Ave and NE Fremont St, Portland, OR 97212. It's free to participate, so you just need to show up and be ready to dance.