Zombies will abound when Odyssey Dance Theatre's "Thriller" returns to Kingsbury Hall this week.

ODT's annual repertory dance macabre has been a staple in Utah for more than a decade. Artistic director Derryl Yeager said he is surprised at how many of the original dances from the first production still look and feel strong.

The opening production-title piece, "Thriller," "Curse of the Mummy," "Frankenstein and Frankenstein," "Dem Bones" and "Jason Jam" have survived the wear and tear of the years.

"When we first started, we didn't know what we were doing," he said in an interview. "But we knew we had something special. It was just trying to find the pieces."

Obviously, Yeager said, they needed to open the show with "Thriller," but also decided to close the show with a little "Thriller" encore.

"The encore was added later on," he said. "But when we saw how popular the production became, I felt like I needed to bookend it. So, that's how that came into being.

"However, it's one of the hardest pieces to dance. Each year we introduce new dancers to it and they always tell me how hard it is."

In the beginning, "Curse of the Mummy" always had a hip-hopping mummy, but the massive King Tut set wasn't added until a couple of years later.

The clomping "Frankenstein and Frankenstein" pas de deux always makes the audience laugh.

"It's a ballet piece," he said. "And I'm excited for it to be performed in New York sometime, because there are so many inside jokes that have to do with ballet."

Yeager said that during the first "Thriller" performance, some of the music was performed by a live band. And when "Frankenstein" went on stage, Yeager liked to watch the band.

"They were in tears because they were laughing so hard at 'Frankenstein,' " Yeager said. "And we still get cheers and laughter."

While the tapping skeleton routine of "Dem Bones" was included in the first performance, it took a few seasons to get the effects right, Yeager said. "First off, it was danced to a whole different song. Then we found one that sounded like bones being hit together. And then we took the theatrics a step further with the skeleton juggling his head."

One of the pieces, considered the "Thriller" show capper, is "Jason Jam." This little work combines the menace of masked mass murderer Jason Voorhees from the "Friday the 13th" films and mixes it up with rhythm performance a la "Stomp" and a bucketload of humor.