Meet The Zombies: Thrill The Villages with Bonnie Stein

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Thrill The Villages: Dance Troupe's Journey and Community Impact

In this episode of Open Forum in The Villages Florida podcast, host Mike Roth interviews Bonnie Stein, the founder of the Thrill The Villages dance troupe. Bonnie discusses the origins and growth of the troupe, from its inception in 2020 with just 10 members to over 200 zombies in 2023. Bonnie details the troupe's performances, community involvement, and the health benefits of dancing, highlighting their participation in the global Thrill The World event. The episode also includes information on how listeners can support the podcast and get involved in the dance troupe.

00:00 Introduction to the Podcast
00:55 Support the Podcast
01:59 Interview with Bonnie Stein
02:18 Thrill The Villages Dance Troupe
04:20 Growth and Performances
05:54 Global Thriller Dance Event
18:39 Training and Preparation
20:19 Zombie Makeup and Costumes
23:25 Audience Reactions and Stories
24:56 How to Join and Participate
28:35 Conclusion and Next Episode

Transcript

Meet the Zombies: Bonnie Stein - Thrill The Villages

[00:00:00] Dolores: Welcome to the Open Forum in The Villages, Florida podcast. In this show, we talk to leaders in the community, leaders of clubs and interesting folks who live here in The Villages to get perspectives of what is happening here in The Villages, Florida. We are a listener supported podcast. There will be shout outs for supporters in episodes. In season six, we will continue making substantial improvements to the podcast.

[00:00:26] Mike Roth: This is Mike Roth, and listeners, I'm thrilled to share with you this podcast, which is my passion project for you. 

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Even a small donation of three to ten dollars a month makes a big difference. And guess what? You can cancel your subscription at any time. No strings attached. Your support means the world to us. Stay curious, stay inspired, and keep those headphones on. I hope everyone enjoys today's show.

[00:01:59] Mike Roth: This is Mike Roth on Open Forum in The Villages with Bonnie Stein. Thanks for joining me today, Bonnie. 

[00:02:05] Bonnie Stein: Thank you, Mike.

[00:02:06] Mike Roth: Bonnie Stein is a native Floridian. And moved to The Villages About how long ago? 

[00:02:12] Bonnie Stein: 2017. So seven years ago.

[00:02:15] Mike Roth: Okay. I moved here in 2017 too. We're here to talk about Bonnie's endeavor over the past three years called Thriller in the Village's Dance Troupe. Bonnie, what motivated you to create a thriller dance troupe here in The Villages?

[00:02:32] Bonnie Stein: So the name of the group is actually Thrill The Villages. 

[00:02:37] Mike Roth: Oh, Thrill. Yes I apologize. 

That's okay. And we started in 2020. So this is now going into our fifth year, our fifth season. And the reason we started in 2020 is I had been part of a Thrill the World group in St. Petersburg, where I was living in that area at the time.

And of course, in 2020, you may remember, we have a great big event that started with a P. Yes. Indeed. And so our thriller dance team in St. Pete decided not to do it that year. I thought The Villages need some entertainment and fun and excitement. And, people were not feeling so joyful during that summer.

So I decided, why not bring this great opportunity to The Villages? And so we started this group. I say, we, I had a. a group of 10 of us that year. And the reason why is because the only way we could practice in the village's rec centers was if we only had 10 people.

And they made us stay six feet apart during that time. So we complied, of course, because we wanted to do this. We had that year, 2020 October, Six performances, all outdoors, and so we performed at driveway parties. 

We performed at the country clubs outside in the breezeway. And we started with six. I thought that would be the end of it that year. I'd go back to St. Pete the next year, but it didn't turn out that way. Our audiences seemed to love it. Our zombies themselves, the 10 of us seem to love it and people encourage me to do it again the next year.

So in 2021, We grew, we doubled to 20 zombies in 2021, and still people were careful about getting too close together at that time. So we complied with the rules that that ensued. And 2022, we grew, doubled again to about 40 members. Last year in 2023, We more than doubled to a hundred zombies. 

[00:04:47] Mike Roth: I remember seeing you at Edna's on the green there with a hundred zombies.

There wasn't enough room for everybody. 

[00:04:52] Bonnie Stein: There was not enough room for everybody. And indeed, we're going to be back at Edna's this year on October 27th with Petrina, We'll be back and we will have to have sign ups, which is what we have to do. Now we have to have our zombies sign up for the performances they're going to do.

And we have to limit it because the fabulous news is that this year we have. Over 200 people that are involved with Thrill The Villages and

[00:05:20] Mike Roth: That's a good thing to know in the sense that if someone signs up to be part of your dance troupe, not everyone has to show up at every performance.

[00:05:28] Bonnie Stein: That is absolutely right. We do not require a certain number of performances. They can choose. We have some of our Thriller zombies that say they only want to come to three. And that's perfectly fine. In fact, our brand new zombies, because we have so many in 2024,

[00:05:47] Mike Roth: good. Bonnie. How many people are going to be performing this year as zombies in your dance troupe? 

Our largest performance is called Thrill the World Night because our, is part of a worldwide organization called Thrill the World. And that means that there are going to be thriller dance teams all over the world performing on the exact same day at the exact same time.

It's always the Saturday before Halloween. So we'll be doing that also. So the Saturday before Halloween this year is October 26 and We're going to be doing it with all of our zombies, all 200 of our zombies at that time, October 26th, where that is the big reveal. I have to not be sure I'm going to say that at this point, but I guarantee it'll be, 

[00:06:41] Mike Roth: is being broadcast live on October 18th.

Oh, okay. So by then everybody will know. Okay. By then the reveal will have been given. So I can go ahead and say this to you. Okay. 

[00:06:52] Mike Roth: I won't say anything to anyone. 

Okay, good. October 26th, the Saturday before Halloween, is when all the teams all over the world are going to be performing Michael Jackson's dance at the exact same day, at the exact same time, and our group, Thrill The Villages is going to be performing at Brown and Brown Farms, which is in Oxford on 301.

And the reason we had to go there is because There is not room for a group of 200 dancers, many places. Last year we had Thrill the World night. We couldn't even perform it inside the rec center we were at. We were at Eisenhower last year and although we still practice at Eisenhower. You cannot fit 200 plus people in that rec center to do it properly with enough room.

So we were doing it last year outside in the parking lot. Even the squares, we've outgrown being able to fit everybody in, although we're going to try that this year. And we do perform at the squares. Friday, October 25th, we'll be performing at 4:45 at Brownwood Square for their big Halloween festivities.

And on Halloween night, again, 4:45, we'll be performing with Scooter the DJ at the great big Halloween festivities at Spanish Springs. We'll also be performing at Edna's. We'll also be performing at Sawgrass on Wednesday, October 30th. So we have lots of times when we're going to have A lot of the zombies.

There's certain times we're performing. For example, Edna's. You mentioned Edna's. We're going to be there October 27th with Petrina. However, we cannot fit our 200 zombies at Edna's. We barely could fit them last year when we had quite a few less. So what we're going to do there is we're going to have people sign up.

Our zombies can sign up.

[00:08:47] Mike Roth: Bonnie, how can everyone in the world do the dance at the same time? People in New York and The Villages no problem.

People in Chicago, they're an hour off. 

[00:08:57] Bonnie Stein: That's right. 

[00:08:57] Mike Roth: People in Denver are gonna be two hours off people in LA or three hours off.

[00:09:03] Bonnie Stein: Great point. Because you are right. We have performing teams from all over the world. So we align with Greenwich Mean Time, and everybody does the dance at their time that aligns with Greenwich Mean Time.

So whatever that is, ours happens to be 6 p. m. So we must do the dance at exactly 6 p. m. and everybody in , our time zone will be doing it at 6 p. m. But in California, for example, those teams will be doing it three hours later, than us. 

[00:09:37] Mike Roth: They'd be doing it at 9 p. m. our time. 

[00:09:39] Bonnie Stein: Right. 

[00:09:40] Mike Roth: Okay, that makes it a lot easier to understand. 

[00:09:42] Bonnie Stein: Yeah. 

[00:09:42] Mike Roth: And So you got the venue for the Browns farm. 

Yes, we're going to be doing it there. The venue, because it's a huge place and they are having a fabulous Halloween event.

The whole farm is going to be decorated for Halloween and fall, and so we're going to align with that. It's going to be a perfect place for our zombies to do the dance for Thrill the World at 6pm. The other thing, Brown and Brown Farms they're going to be having fireworks that evening. Most people don't have fireworks on Halloween, but they're going to be having fireworks on Halloween.

And so there's a whole bunch of festivities going on there at the farm. 

[00:10:26] Mike Roth: How many people can they accommodate? 

[00:10:27] Bonnie Stein: They can accommodate. I'm imagining they can accommodate more than a thousand people there. 

[00:10:33] Mike Roth: Wow. 

[00:10:33] Bonnie Stein: More than a thousand. I'm not sure, because I've never, we've never done this before. This year we were actually going to do it at Edna's on Thrill of the World Night, but once we grew so much, we realized there's no way we can fit.

So we're going to do Edna's on another day, and that's the thing. The smaller venues. We have our thriller zombies sign up. So we may have certain times we may be doing a Halloween performance. Let's say inside Laurel Manor rec center, we're doing a Halloween performance. How can we do that? We may have only 30 zombies do that one.

And so our smaller venues, we have signups. And people can sign up for again, the as many, I'm not going to say as many as they want to do because we want to even it out, but our brand new zombies are getting to do the performances of three. big performances, those three big performances that we had the last week in October.

Yeah. We're very open to that. And not only that, but anybody, whoever wants performance of thriller, we're pretty booked for this year, but They can go to our website, which is thrillthevillages.com, and on our website, there is a performance request form that they can fill out, send it to us, and we'll look at it and look at our schedule and see if there's availability, and it tells them how to actually make the request. Anybody who wants us for, let's say, next year, it's possible we can do something for this year, but I'm not sure.

We have over 27. Performances already scheduled here in The Villages for October. And that's the only time we perform the zombies go to sleep on October. After October 31st, we go to sleep until the following year. 

[00:12:18] Mike Roth: Yeah that's pretty good. Do you charge these venues for your performance? 

Sometimes they, we do charge.

Yes. Sometimes we do. And sometimes we don't, we do lots and lots of performances for charity organizations. We offer our. Performance for that, but if it's a social thing or a party, or if they have entertainment that's being paid, then Thrill of The Villages does charge for that venue. And we have our first year, what was interesting, our first year, maybe our first few years certainly the first year we were practically, Like begging people, Hey, do you want our group to come and show up at your Halloween party?

But things have changed quite a bit. Not only we don't have to do that anymore, but we now have people asking us a year ahead to book for the next year. So we've had to tighten up on how we offer that. 

[00:13:15] Mike Roth: That's good. It's a good performance. I've seen it. So if people have never done. a dance routine. We're not involved with a professional dance club here in The Villages. Can they participate in the thriller dance? 

[00:13:30] Bonnie Stein: Absolutely. We like to say that you don't have to be a good dancer. You don't even have to ever have danced before, and we will teach you how to do Thriller.

We break it down step by step. It is a challenging dance to do because it's six minutes of differing choreography. It's not quite like a line dance where you do the exact same steps over and over again to four different walls. This is six minutes of differing choreography, and so there is some memory that Is happening during this time.

You're having to remember the dance. You're having to remember the steps at the same time, you're having to remember what comes next and the transitions and you're having to do it as part of a unit where we all have, 200 of us. The goal is to all look the same as we do the dance within our own zombie personality.

So we will teach everybody. We really break it down. And people who thought. they're like, I will never, ever be able to get this. They learn it by the end. We're amazed right now. We're only have one month. under our belts right now of teaching our brand new 2024 zombies. And yet they are doing a fabulous job of learning this dance.

[00:14:52] Mike Roth: What percentage of the zombies from last year coming back this year, 

[00:14:55] Bonnie Stein: A huge percentage come back. We had a hundred last year and we have 80 of them coming back. So that's a pretty high percentage, 80%. And some of them, the reason why they're not coming back or things like that. They moved, so they're not in The Villages anymore.

[00:15:12] Mike Roth: That's a good excuse. Yes, we 

[00:15:13] Bonnie Stein: thought so. And sometimes they might have some illness in their family that they need to be taken care of, even if it's not their illness, a family member that they're involved with. And some people just do it for one year, but most people end up loving this and feeling I don't know, very, It's a fun way for adults here to celebrate Halloween and celebrate the month.

And keep in mind also how many people love Michael Jackson's music and love Thriller. Thriller is the number one selling album. in the world and has been so since it came out in 1983. 

[00:15:57] Mike Roth: Really. Are there any health benefits especially brain health to your learning, having people learn the dance with all of the different steps?

That is one of the things that we love to do. Also about thriller. Now, I'm a fitness instructor. I teach race walking and have been teaching race walking for 35 years, so the first benefit of thriller is definitely physical. No question about it. It is an aerobic exercise and people who do thriller who aren't exercisers and start exercising with us.

In Thriller. Talk about afterwards how during this season how they lost weight, trimmed down in size, changed their body shape, feel more fit. So that of course is music to my ears. Just hearing that. But the other thing that is so fabulous about doing this dance is the brain health benefits of doing aerobic exercise.

35 years ago when I was teaching race walking, I never talked about the brain. benefits of aerobic exercise. But over the last 10 years, we have learned that whatever is good for the heart is good for the brain. So aerobic exercise is one of the best things you can do to make those new neuromuscular pathways in your brain.

We call it neuroplasticity, how we never used to think that the brain changed. We thought by the time you're an adult, That's what you got. And from then on, it's losing brain cells. But we now know through studies of neuroplasticity that is not true at all. That the brain can change and that we can grow new cells and that we can grow new pathways in the brain.

And one of the things that helps it is sending oxygenated blood to the brain, just oxygenated blood from the heart everywhere else changes our muscles, it also changes what happens in the brain. 

[00:17:49] Mike Roth: And that's confirmed by One of our health tips from Dr. Curtis and let's take a quick break here and listen to a short Alzheimer's tip from Dr. Craig Curtis. 

So if one of our listeners want to go to one of your seminars that you put on regularly, how do they make a reservation to do that? 

[00:18:07] Dr. Craig Curtis: The easiest way is to go to our website, which is www. craigcurtismd. com or call our office at 352 500 5252. Thanks, Dr. Curtis. Thank you, Mike.

With over 20 years of experience studying brain health, Dr. Curtis's goal is to educate the village's community on how to live a longer, healthier life. To learn more, visit his website, craig curtis md.com, or call 3 5 2 5 0 0 5 2 5 2 to attend a free seminar.

[00:18:39] Mike Roth: So Bonnie You have all these people that are training How do you train them all if you can't get them all in the same rec center? 

[00:18:47] Bonnie Stein: We have three days a week that we have a dedicated rec center on each of those three days. We practice on Sunday at noon and Monday evening at 6 30 and Thursday at 1230, and our zombies don't have to come to every single practice, but some of them choose to.

They love coming and they love practicing with us, and so they come all three days a week, but some can't because some people work, so they can't come on Thursday afternoon, so they may come two days a week, and we even allow them to come just one day a week. Assuming they will also practice the dance at home, so we don't have to fit in all the people in the rec center, although there have been quite a few days that we've had 200 in there and it is quite squished on those days.

One more thing I wanted to say, Mike, about the brain health is that because this is a six minute dance, it is requiring them to really be thinking and focusing. And one of the things that I'm sure Dr. Curtis would agree upon. It's the learning new things that help our brain too, so that's why picking up an instrument as an adult and learning how to play an instrument, learning a new language, those are things that definitely put the brain into action to learn something new.

With aerobic exercise, the benefit is that you are getting that oxygenated blood to the brain at the same exact time that you're learning something new and getting the physical benefits. 

[00:20:19] Mike Roth: 

So Bonnie, you teach people how to do the dance, but do you also teach them how to put the makeup on? 

[00:20:24] Bonnie Stein: Great question. We absolutely do. This year for the first time, because we've grown so much and gotten so much bigger, we are actually going to have a professional makeup artist who has been a makeup artist for over 40 years in theater, In the movies, and he now lives close enough that he is going to come one day and teach our zombies how to do professional makeup at three different levels. So he's going to show us that and tell us how to do it at home and where to buy the particular makeup. The other thing that we have is we have some of our own thrillers from last year and the year before who have gotten quite good at doing their makeup.

And we're going to take another day and let them. Show our new zombies how to implement the zombie look. 

[00:21:15] Mike Roth: Yeah most people don't keep a zombie costume at home. How do you come up with a zombie costume? 

[00:21:20] Bonnie Stein: That is the easy part. I know that seems unusual, but that's the super easy part.

First of all, Mike, I bet you have in your closet. Something way back in the back that you've been holding on to that you have not worn in quite a few years. All of us have something like that. So we tell people, first go in the back of your own closet, way back, and dig out something that is old And you haven't worn it in five or 10 years, but you don't want to get rid of it yet.

That could be your zombie costume. And we'll show you how to zombie that up. The other option is one of the many thrift stores here in The Villages. You'd be doing a great service to them by buying one of their dollar rack Items that nobody else has bought. What do you 

[00:22:07] Mike Roth: mean by zombie them up? 

[00:22:09] Bonnie Stein: Let's say I go to a thrift store and I find something on the dollar rack that I don't want to spend a whole lot of money on.

So I'll find something that has been probably in that thrift store for several months and that's why they finally put it on the dollar or two dollar rack. Take that, take it home and you can dirty it up. That's what we mean by zombie it up. First you Dirty it up with pretend dirt coffee spray or something that kind of makes it look old and dingy.

And then the next thing you're going to do is cut it up because zombies have been sleeping for a long time. 40, 000 years, some of them. So they've been in the ground a long time sleeping. And so their stuff is all tattered and ripped up. We're going to show you how to cut that up and make it look more, even more zombie.

So you don't wear a typical Halloween outfit. You can be a doctor or a nurse or a zombie. Teacher or a zombie housewife or a zombie schoolgirl or a cheerleader a normal average Person that we turn into a zombie. 

[00:23:16] Mike Roth: Yeah, that's it.

That's an interesting perspective So they don't have to go out to Amazon and buy a zombie suit 

[00:23:22] Bonnie Stein: We don't even want you to do that.

[00:23:24] Mike Roth: Okay. Have any of your zombies told you stories about what happened when they were driving to or from an event?

And people saw them made up and dress that way. 

[00:23:35] Bonnie Stein: Yes. 

[00:23:35] Mike Roth: Can you tell our listeners one? 

[00:23:37] Bonnie Stein: So the as we get closer and closer to Halloween here in The Villages it's so very normal to be going to activities and parties all dressed a zombie or whatever wearing your Halloween costume. So the closer we get to Halloween, the more we don't even get a second look when somebody sees us.

However, I will say, if we're going early on in October, the first couple weeks of October, if we have a performance, which we do every year, that's when you get a look from somebody in a car right next to you. And it is a shocking look. 

People in The Villages are used to people dressing up, 

[00:24:18] Mike Roth: I don't remember what year it was, but you did a performance at the Bohemian Spotlight Cafe a couple of years ago. Yeah. And when I walked into the room, I didn't know you folks were going to be there and I was aghast, is a good word for it.

And one of the zombies comes over to me and says, Mike, how you doing? And I looked at the lady and I said do I know you? And, She finally identified herself as Laura and I said, Oh yeah, Laura, she's in my improv group. But the makeup and the costume just threw me way off. 

[00:24:50] Bonnie Stein: Absolutely. We are unrecognizable sometimes.

People don't even recognize who we are.

[00:24:56] Mike Roth: For our listeners, what is the website that they can go to see a list of where your performances are and when they are?

[00:25:03] Bonnie Stein: Thrillthevillages.com. And we have a list of our performances and we have a list of our public performances. That's the only ones that we put on our website are our public performances. So you can see. The list there and where our big performances are going to be, but even we have some smaller performances, for example, sawgrass again, because they can't fit all of our zombies will be a what we call a smaller performance, but it will have a lot of our zombies.

And I know that will appeal to so many of our new residents who live south of 44. They will love the fact that we'll be at Sawgrass this year. We'll be at Edna's again this year. So find it on the website. 

[00:25:47] Mike Roth: It was just jammed when I was there. 

[00:25:49] Bonnie Stein: Absolutely. The other thing is that we have a Facebook page, so anybody can go to our Facebook page, which is Thrill The Villages on Facebook and find our Facebook page.

I think we have now over almost. 4, 000 fans on our Facebook page. Anybody who just loves Thriller and wants to know what we're up to can go and be a fan of our Facebook page.

[00:26:15] Mike Roth: Great. On the Facebook page or on your website, can they see? Videos of your past performances 

[00:26:21] Bonnie Stein: They can see videos of our past performance. It's a lot easier to find it on our website. So on our website, you can just go into the section called past performances.

[00:26:31] Mike Roth: Is there a signup page on your website so people could be notified about the training for 2025? 

[00:26:38] Bonnie Stein: We do not have that signup.

So now we say, join our Facebook page. Or you don't have to join our Facebook page. You can look at the website next summer.

[00:26:50] Mike Roth: Looking. 

[00:26:52] Bonnie Stein: Cause we start August 1st or let's say we start the first week in August, whenever that is, we start practicing.

So in May is when we start. Start telling people where the practices will be, and what to look for and how to. This year we didn't even ask for sign ups ahead of time, but because we've grown so much, that may need to change next year. 

And where our practices are and just to show up. Now, for any of your listeners that are getting so excited about this I can say that here we are in October, we're going, we're quite full right now. So you cannot sign up in October. You have to be a villages resident who's going to be in town in August and September.

If you want to be part of this group, you're not, you need to make sure that you're in town. Unfortunately, we can't take snowbirds because. Practice starts in August. 

If you're in town, in The Villages in August, you can be part of our 2025 group. 

[00:27:51] Mike Roth: Good. Is your group a Villages Lifestyle Club? 

[00:27:55] Bonnie Stein: We absolutely are a Villages Lifestyle Club.

Yes, we became a Villages Lifestyle Club in 2023. 

[00:28:01] Mike Roth: Okay. Is there anything else you want to tell our listeners before we go? 

[00:28:04] Bonnie Stein: For this year, I'd love to tell everybody, go to the website and take a look at where we're going to be this year, and come out and watch it, and then you'll see if it appeals to you, which I know it will, and then you can come and think about joining us next year.

Although we do have some fans that come out and watch us every single year, and that's where they get the joy. They're, they get the joy. They're not going to be a zombie, but they love participating in the audience by just watching us. 

[00:28:34] Mike Roth: Great. Thanks for being with us, Bonnie. 

[00:28:36] Bonnie Stein: You're very welcome. My pleasure.

[00:28:38] Emily (2): Remember, our next episode will be released next Friday at 9 am. Should you want to become a major supporter of the show or have questions, please contact us at mike@rothvoice.Com. This is a shout out for supporters Tweet Coleman, Ed Williams, Paul Sorgen, Duane Roemmich and major supporter Dr. Craig Curtis at K2 in the Villages. 

We will be hearing more from Dr. Curtis with short Alzheimer's tips each week. If you know someone who should be on the show, contact us at mike at rothvoice. com. We thank everyone for listening to the show. The content of the show is copyrighted by Rothvoice 2024. All rights reserved.