The Dancing Inmates of Cebu Goes Big Time

MANILA, Philippines - The dancing inmates of the Cebu Provincial Jail’s Maximum Security Penitentiary have really gone big time this time, with Michael Jackson’s choreographer Travis Payne and two of the late pop star’s dancers – Daniel Celebre and Dreis Reid – performing with the YouTube sensations in a stunning rendition of “They Don’t Really Care About Us.”

The video, filmed over two days (Jan. 18 and 19) at the jail compound in Cebu, debuted on YouTube midnight last Sunday (Monday afternoon in Manila), and is part of the global launch of Jackson’s “This Is It” DVD by Sony Pictures Worldwide.

Payne and the dancers were interviewed on “The Joy Behar Show” on CNN’s sister channel HLN last Tuesday. The Emmy Award-winning co-host of “The View” spoke to Payne about his experience doing the video with the inmates in Cebu.

The 4-minute, 27-second video can also be seen on TMZ.com (“Dancing Inmates – Michael Jackson This Is It”), which has over 16 million global visitors a month. “With all the time in the world on their hands, the inmates of Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines have learned another Michael Jackson routine…with some help,” writes TMZ, which gave the video a five-star rating.

The project was couched in secrecy to avoid leaks and premature release of video clips. STARweek was given these exclusive photos taken during rehearsals and filming.

A video of the dance routine was sent to the inmates five days before the team from Sony Pictures flew over from Los Angeles. Local choreographer Gwen Laydor helped the dancers learn the routine, and they were ready by the time Payne and his team flew in to Cebu.

Over two days of intense rehearsals, they worked on blocking for the 1,200 inmates involved in the dance. Payne revised some parts, but observers noted that it all went quite smoothly, and on the second day they were ready for actual filming.

Fritz Friedman, senior vice president for worldwide publicity of Sony Pictures, told STARweek that he brought 2,000 black “This Is It” t-shirts, which the inmates wore over their regulation orange pants. Four cameras captured the dance from different angles to best show off the precision and sharpness of the dancers’ moves.

Onlookers, including jail warden Byron Garcia and his sister Cebu Gov. Gwen Garcia, were not only impressed but visibly moved; not a few shed tears.

Fil-Am model/actor Will Devaughn, who stars in a new teleserye “Habang May Buhay” with Gina Alajar and Judy Ann Santos that premieres tomorrow on Channel 2, makes a cameo appearance carrying the portrait of Martin Luther King Jr.

After the filming wrapped up, Payne, Celebre and Reid performed a number for the inmates. When it was their turn to perform for their guests, the inmates invited Payne to join them in “Dangerous,” a number he had choreographed for the late pop icon. Even without rehearsing, they performed flawlessly, drawing enthusiastic praise from the guests.

A new company called Main Cast – composed of Dondon Monteverde, Ernest Escaler and Ross Misa – facilitated the project, bringing together the dancing inmates and the people from Sony, producers of Jackson’s “This Is It.” The three were effusive in their praise, saying that the project’s success was way beyond their expectations.

The dancing inmates of Cebu first caught the attention of the world when warden Garcia uploaded a video of the inmates performing the zombie-like dance to Jackson’s hit “Thriller.” Bodies in a sea of orange moving in unison captured the international public’s imagination, and the YouTube posting received up to 300,000 hits per day at its peak. Since it was uploaded in April 2007, it had reportedly generated over 37 million views by the end of December 2009.

Garcia turned to dance as a means to get inmates at Cebu’s maximum security facility to participate in the daily exercise, and also as a means to minimize if not solve the perrenial problem of gang wars inside the prison.

“The goal is to keep the body fit in order to keep the mind fit,” said Garcia. He chose songs by the Village People – such as “In the Navy” and “YMCA” – to give the exercise a touch of machismo, so the inmates wouldn’t balk at dancing.

The dancing inmates have a fairly large repertoire, including Jackson hits (their tribute to Jackson after he died last June was featured on CNN) and of-the-moment fads like “Nobody” by the Korean girl group Wonder Girls and “Jai Ho” from the Oscar-winning movie “Slumdog Millionaire.”

The inmates stage a public performance once a month, and visitors come from all over the country and even from abroad for these performances. Afterwards, visitors can have their photos taken with the inmates, and buy souvenir prison shirts.

In their Wikipedia entry, inmate Crisanto Nierre, who took the role of Jackson in “Thriller,” was quoted as saying: “I hope that all the people who see us will be happy knowing that we, despite being prisoners, were able to do this. Before the dancing, our problems were really heavy to bear. Dancing takes our minds away from our problems. Our bodies become more healthy.”

The inmates of this facility are awaiting trial for or have been convicted of crimes ranging from theft to rape and murder. As for their fate before the bar of justice, Nierre continued: “As for the judges, they may be impressed with us, seeing that we are being rehabilitated and this could help our case. We are being rehabilitated in a good way.”