For the eleventh year in a row, Flash Mob New Orleans is coming “to terrorize y’all’s neighborhood” with a series of thrilling and surprise performances in the days leading up to and on Halloween. To celebrate the undisputed King of Pop, Flash Mob New Orleans will host a series of choreographed workshops to celebrate Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”  

Workshops will be held on Saturdays beginning September 10 from 2 to 3:30 at the Ann Burr Dance Studio, 1128 Dublin Street. Attendees will dance their way through Michael Jackson’s musical legacy with moves harkening back to the original “Thriller” music video that debuted in 1983.

With a budget of $500,000—nearly $1.4 million today—”Thriller” was the most expensive productions of its kind, but Jackson wasn’t frightened by those figures. Impressed by the special effects and costuming in the An American Werewolf in London, Jackson recruited John Landis, director of the 1981 horror film. As Jackson eased further down the road to “Thriller,” he picked up Ola Ray, a former Playboy model, who would play Jackson’s doomed paramour and a hoard of dancers to bring his dream—or more appropriately, nightmare—to life. The result was a cultural moment that would earn the video an induction into the Library of Congress and would spark reenactments from inmates in the Philippines to nearly 13,000 dancers in the streets of Mexico City.

While 13,000 people aren’t expected to creep through the Crescent City, New Orleanians are encouraged to join the movement that Kenneth “Kynt” Bryan, founder of Flash Mob New Orleans, defined in an interview with NewsOrleans.me as “a random spontaneous combustion of energy in any way shape form at any random time in any given space.” Flash Mob New Orleans welcomes participants of all experience levels and ages and charges $90 for the entire series of workshops and $15 per individual class.

In addition to the promise of a real workout, the mob offers an opportunity to get out into the streets and learn “new and unique secret flash dance themes” exclusive to the workshop, and groove to rhythms that “no mere mortal can resist.”

To learn more about the workshop and the class schedule, please visit the Flash Mob New Orleans website. To purchase tickets, see the Eventbrite page.