The members of the Odyssey Dance Theatre will perform their Halloween spectacular ‘Thriller’ for the last time here at the Ellen Eccles Theatre on Sept. 27 and 28.
LOGAN – When the Odyssey Dance Theatre presents Thriller at the Ellen Eccles Theatre here on Sept 26 and 27, it will mark the end of an era.
That’s because the two-night stand of the popular Halloween show will be its Cache Valley swan song.
Derryl Yeager and his wife Cheryl have announced their retirement at the end of Thriller’s 26th season in the fall.
Derryl Yeager was the founder and artistic director of Odyssey Dance. Cheryl Yeager was the company’s costumer designer. The innovative dance troupe will close its doors forever with their retirement.
The two-night stand at the Ellen Eccles Theatre will be the first stop on a triumphant farewell tour of Utah.
Other venues hosting Thriller will be the Egyptian Theatre in Park City from Sept 29 to Oct. 2; Peery’s Egyptian Theatre in Ogden, Oct. 3 and 4; Kingsbury Hall on the campus of the University of Utah, Oct. 10 to 22; and, the Tuacahn Amphitheatre in Ivins, Oct. 25 to 29.
Yeager founded the Odyssey Dance Theatre in 1994 and came up with the idea for Thriller a couple years later. It started small, but quickly grew into a Halloween spectacular.
The ODT has been wowing Utah audiences with Thriller for more than twenty years and it’s easy to see why. For its dedicated fans, the show is part of Halloween. The holiday won’t be the same without it.
Thriller is a great show. There are gorgeous costumes, dazzling special effects, a marvelous soundtrack mixing classical and contemporary music, lots of laughs and a few jump-out-of-your-seat scares.
Not to mention great dancing. That’s taken for granted when the ODT dancers take the stage.
Featuring a corps of 30 young professionals, the show is made up of production numbers ranging in scale from duets to real mob scenes. The styles of dancing in Thriller run the gamut from classic ballet to hip-hop, but Yeager’s hoofers have obviously mastered all of those techniques.
But Thriller was not the only spectacle in the ODT’s repertoire.
The troupe’s dancers also performed the Redux Nut-Cracker, a hip-hop version of the Christmas ballet; full-length adaptations Giselle, Carmen, Romeo + Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream; dance productions of Joy to the World, It’s a Wonderful Life and the always evolving Shut Up and Dance; and more than 70 individual dances, most of which were presented as world premieres.
The Odyssey Dance Theatre will definitely be missed.
Tickets for their late September performances at the Ellen Eccles Theatre are already on sale and will probably go like hotcakes.