RIEGELSVILLE, Pa. - Riegelsville is a town so tiny, it only has one stop light.
“As soon as the light turns green, you’ve pretty much seen it all,” one local joked.
The population is around 800, and for the last four years, it seems like almost all of them have been coming out to watch a Halloween “flash mob” at Viana Boenzli’s house.
She happens to be mayor of the Bucks County borough, and has been involved every year in one way or another – but this year was her first time organizing it.
She will be the first to tell you, she was nervous.
“Every year I’m nervous,” she said Tuesday night, dressed as Wednesday Addams and handing out Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, to a group of kids dressed like dinosaurs.
“I just get a little stage fright. I’ve done this, this will be my fourth time now, and every year I’m in the front row…you just get stage fright! You know, I heard the other day that if you’re nervous, it’s because it’s important to you, that it matters to you, so I’m taking that as a good sign.”
Boenzli’s house was topped with a giant fabric spider, fake tombstones on the lawn, and even more of them forming a big square on the street – meant to block off an area for the choreographed flash mob dance later.
The entire street, with about 10 houses on it, was blocked off to traffic too, with local police putting up about a dozen traffic cones that looked like they’ve been around since the invention of the traffic cone.
Stealth training
Only about 15 people were actually “in” the dance, and they usually get introduced through husbands, friends, wives, sisters, brothers.
This year, the group had a professional choreographer, Lex Donatelli, who was doing the project for fun, but taking it seriously nonetheless. He has an extensive background in theater and in the arts.
“Yeah, so I can't spoil anything. But as far as the dance goes, it's it's going to be a little more modern than what we've done before. Typically, we would do thriller, as our dance and potential mash up with other halloween themed songs. But this is a little bit different, more current, and we wanted to change it up and hope the crowd enjoys it."Lex Donatelli, choreographer
Donatelli wore a buttoned-up “Gomez” costume, hair slicked and combed back with pomade, seemingly not a strand out of place, paired with a pin-striped suit that looked spot-on to the recent Netflix portrayal of the character.
That observation turned out to be relevant Tuesday night:
“Yeah, so I can't spoil anything. But as far as the dance goes, it's going to be a little more modern than what we've done before," he said. "Typically, we would do "Thriller," as our dance and potential mash up with other Halloween-themed songs. But this is a little bit different, more current, and we wanted to change it up and hope the crowd enjoys it.”
The group practiced twice a week, starting in the spring. At certain points, they actually went to secret locations, which not a single one of the cast members would spoil – in order to keep away the prying eyes of the neighbors of the small town.
The secret location also had an added benefit of practicing for different conditions, such as high winds and rain, and participants said they got the benefit of “if you can perform in this, you can perform in anything” during the rainy, windy days at the secret location.
“I just get a little stage fright, I’ve done this, this will be my fourth time now, and every year I’m in the front row…you just get stage fright! You know, I heard the other day that if you’re nervous, it’s because it’s important to you, that it matters to you, so I’m taking that as a good sign.”Viana Boenzli, Mayor of Riegelsville and organizer of the Halloween "flash mob"
“It’s quite a big production,” Boenzli said, pointing up to the roofs of some of her neighbors.
It wasn’t noticeable until she pointed it out, but about four of her neighbors at nearby houses were all dressed in black, either literally on top of their roofs, or standing in their front-facing windows, standing with their fingers on the trigger of floodlights. Boenzli said once they get a secret cue, at a certain beat of the opening song, the lights flash on, lighting up the whole street in spooky orange and green theater lights.
The other technical stuff was impressive too – a set of giant speakers were hidden behind a fabric ghost decoration in the family’s yard that hung from a tree about 10 feet tall. An entire videography team was involved as well, even setting up ladders at different points surrounding the stage area on the street, making sure they got the best shots.
Spooky showtime
At 7:30 on the dot, an excited silence spread throughout the crowd.
Kids, sitting in small circles on the pavement, dressed in their costumes, whispered to each other, while their parents crouched down to say “Shhh!”
One group of girls, who looked to be between the ages of five and eight, were all dressed as princesses, and sitting elevated on several puffy blankets. They were so tiny that the puff of the blanket was enough to lift them up a little bit, and they looked like a royal family in the balcony section at an old-time theater, waiting to be entertained.
After a bit of fumbling with the volume, the speakers played the well-known Addams Family song, with the two finger-snaps ending every phrase. The 15 dancers got in formation.
They warmed up with a medley of a few songs, including Lady Gaga hits, the dancing perfectly synchronized, and contained little homages to the different music videos or known dance moves that each song was strongly associated with. The crowd loved it, and the group of princesses from earlier stood up on their blanket and jumped around, waving their pink puffy magic wands to the beat.
The pinnacle of the performance were a couple of songs recently re-popularized from the Netflix series "Wednesday," about Wednesday Addams. The younger members of the crowd definitely understood the homages, and cheered extra loud at those parts. (In total, there were about seven members of the dance troupe dressed as Wednesday – many of them biological sisters)
After a climactic end, the cast themselves cheered, and motioned to invite everybody into the one blocked-off square, now to join and dance with them. Hundreds did, and it looked like an all-out party.
On the old bridge
After the performance, a visible wave of relief fell over the cast. They caught up with each other, hugging, complimenting each other’s performances, all while still handing out candies to the trick-or-treaters.
A tradition that has been around since nearly the start of the “flash mob” is going to the nearby Riegelsville free bridge to take photos, and then to the Riegelsville Inn for drinks.
While taking photos, the culture of the small town made itself apparent. A group of non-dancers, friends, stood on the other side of the road snapping photos at the entrance to a narrow bridge. Despite heavy Halloween traffic, every single one of the five vehicles trying to come through stopped in the middle of the road. It wasn't because they thought someone was going to walk in front of them, but because they wanted to wait for the picture to be taken before ruining the show. Nobody honked in annoyance at all – it seemed completely normal to everyone involved.
Said one of the people taking pictures from across the road: “It would be kind of rude if they didn’t stop, don’t you think?”
