A Dance Victory: Winning Credit for Michael Peters as Thriller’s Choreographer

What happens when dancers speak up for what’s right — and it actually works?

After releasing an episode on the legendary choreographer Michael Peters (for my The Rest of the Story series), I stumbled across something that stopped me cold: a global dance event celebrating Thriller (Michael Jackson)… without a single mention of the man who choreographed it.

Not on the homepage. Not in the archives. Not even under “choreography.”

So I decided to do something about it.

And you — my audience — showed up in full force.

In this episode, I share the full story of what happened next: the social media post, the emails, the screenshots, the resistance, the pushback… and ultimately, the change.

Peters’ name is finally where it belongs.

It’s a small shift on a global stage — but one that reminds us credit matters, and voices can spark change.

Le’t chat about how it happened!

Watch this episode on YouTube!

Watch the Michael Peters episode of The Rest of the Story!

Check out my ⁠Return to Dance docuseries!⁠

Support my Instagram — where I post daily dance inspo, insights and fun! ⁠@backtogreat

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
What happens when you fight for a choreographer to be credited for their work and it actually

(00:07):
works?
Welcome to "Hey Dancer, I'm your host Miller Daurey.
If this podcast ever makes you feel more inspired, more seen, more fired up, make sure you're
following and subscribed wherever you're watching or listening.
And hey, yeah, if you are listening on Apple, do me a favor.
It really helps leave a review, leave a rating.
What goes a long way, share with your dance fam and I have a feeling today's episode

(00:31):
is going to make every dancer and especially every choreographer smile just a little bit extra
by the time it's over.
Okay, so in a recent episode of my weekly series, The Rest of the Story, I covered the legendary
choreographer Michael Peters.
If you haven't heard it yet, go give it a listen.
I do break down his work, you know, on Michael Jackson's thriller, his collaborations with

(00:55):
icons like Diana Ross and Pat Benetar and how often his brilliance has been overlooked and
outright erased.
But what I didn't expect was that the episode would actually spark actual change.
Like real world receipts and screenshots proof that speaking up matters kind of change.

(01:16):
Now let me tell you the story.
While I was researching that episode, I came across this global event called "Thrill the
World" where thousands of people gather in cities around the world to perform the thriller
dance every year.
Sounds amazing, right?
Yeah, because it is.
But I looked a little closer and noticed something quite disturbing and I don't use that word

(01:39):
hyperbolicly.
It's true.
On their website, there was a single mention of Michael Peters, the actual choreographer of
Thriller, not on their homepage, their history page, their archives.
Not even under the category of choreography and dance instructions.
What?
And that's when it hit me.

(02:00):
Here's this huge, coordinated, international celebration of his choreography and the man who
created it is invisible.
So I thought, I need to pin this in my memory and I need to post about it.
This couldn't just live in the Michael Peters podcast episode, you know?
I had to speak out more directly.
It needed to be its own social media moment.

(02:21):
So that's what I did.
I created a reel in the caption of that reel.
I included a prompt that if you DM me, I'll shoot you the email address of this website
organization thing.
And I'm excited to say that many of you did not to mention a few of you followed up with
a DM telling me that you sent the email and provided a screenshot.

(02:45):
Now I'm including some of those in the video here.
If you're watching, I'm not going to read them, but if you're watching, you know, on YouTube
or Spotify, you can pause the video and check them out.
Bottom line, you were all so lovely and courteous in your tone when you emailed them, which
I really appreciated.
Now one dancer even sent me the full exchange because, yeah, thrill the world responded to

(03:08):
them.
Nobody had mentioned getting a response yet.
Now, I'm not going to read the email because to their credit, they did eventually do
the right thing, which I'll get to, but this response was unfortunately quite harsh.
They literally denied they had anything to do with the original choreography and insisted

(03:29):
they had nothing to correct.
It was clearly a brush off.
It was dismissive and it made one thing very clear.
They didn't think crediting Michael Peters was necessary to say that angered me would be
an understatement.
Now of course, I had planned to email them from the beginning, but between researching and
editing and getting the post out there and then fielding, you know, DMs from you and all

(03:53):
of that, I hadn't quite gotten to it yet.
But once I saw how they responded to one of you, that lit the fire to email them immediately
in that moment.
I was direct, clear, respectful.
I reminded them that acknowledgement costs nothing and yet means everything.
Here are a few excerpts from what I wrote.
I'm going to keep this short and just give you select moments.

(04:16):
Speaking about the omission of his name is both troubling and surprising, especially considering
that the choreography performed, particularly the zombie sequence is unmistakably based on
Peters original work.
The structure, phrasing and movement vocabulary reflect his creative authorship, even if elements

(04:38):
have been adapted or simplified to imply this is not his choreography in whole or in part
would be historically inaccurate and frankly disingenuous.
This is not a matter of opinion or interpretation.
It is documented dance history more over as you're likely aware choreographic works are

(04:59):
protected under US copyright law if they are original and fixed in a tangible medium.
According to the US Copyright Office, quote, "Drivative works based on existing choreography
also require permission from the original creator."
Within 24 hours of my email and Lord knows how many others sent by you beautiful people,

(05:23):
the thrill the world cite was updated and now at the very bottom of every page it reads,
"The thrill the world is an event run by fans who receive no monetary benefit and is not
associated with Sony Music Entertainment, original thriller choreography by Michael Peters.

(05:44):
Thrill the world dancers perform a modified version."
Now is it really a modified version?
Elements are and elements are not.
A lot of it is directly taken from Michael Peters.
It would be more honest to be frank if they said this is Michael Peters' choreography through
and through and in moments we took some creative liberties.

(06:07):
But you know you just take what you can get sometimes and ultimately this is a good thing.
That's all we wanted.
Credit, context, truth.
Now if I had to be super picky sure I'd still love to see his name credited in the YouTube
video descriptions that have literally millions of views but this is a win.

(06:27):
More importantly it's a reminder.
Dancers do have power.
We have voices.
When you speak up professionally, kindly, clearly, change can happen.
You might feel like it's too small to matter but it's not.
This is how the shift begins.
This is how choreographers start to get the credit they deserve.
This is how part in the preaching is this is how we stop a ratio.

(06:49):
This has been going on with choreographers specifically since the dawn of the entertainment
industry.
So whatever it is you're passionate about, whatever story you think needs correcting don't
be afraid to show up for it.
Because one ripple, I know this sounds corny, one ripple can turn into a wave and this time
that wave had Michael Peters name on it.

(07:10):
His name is where it belongs.
I am so grateful to all of you who helped, who shared, who shared the real, who tagged
people, choreographers, dancers, who spread the word, all the things.
Alright, dance fam, thank you for listening.
If this episode resonated with you, if you were inspired by the actual change that occurred,

(07:31):
please do me a favor and like and comment down below if you're watching on YouTube or
Spotify share with your dance fam.
And again, if you are listening on Apple, it just takes a moment to leave a rating or a
review and I don't mean to make anybody feel any kind of way, but I see the downloads there
on Apple, but for months and months I've seen no change or movement with regard to ratings

(07:54):
and reviews.
And as I've said before, I'm a one man team.
So when you just take a moment to help my show out in that way, it really goes a long
way.
So thank you in advance and until next time.
[Music]