Dancing inmates to form giant human Christmas tree

CPDRC dancing inmates prepare for their Christmas presentation that will be highlighted by the formation of a giant human Christmas tree.
(CDN PHOTO/TONEE DESPOJO)

The world-famous dancing inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC) will perform a Christmas dance on December 24 — this time forming a giant Christmas tree.

Around 2,200 inmates will attempt to form a giant human Christmas tree at the jail quadrangle, Capitol jail consultant Marco Toral said. The performance is scheduled at 1 p.m. The public is invited to watch the performance.

Toral said the inmates will don their orange jail uniforms and dye their hands with leftover food coloring. The inmates will dance to Christmas songs, he said.

“When they raise their hands in the air, the view from the top will resemble a Christmas tree. Red, yellow and green. It’s beautiful,” Toral said.

Toral said they initially planned to present the performance to clinch the Guinness world record on the largest human Christmas tree formation.

However, he said it might be difficult for them to bring the adjudicators to the country. “We don’t know how to contact them (Guinness adjudicators.) But despite that, this will push through,” he told Cebu Daily News.

Honduras currently holds the Guinness world record for the largest human Christmas tree with 2,945 people. The country unseated previous record holder Argentina for the record last December 1.

On the same date, the jail facility will be implementing an open house for the inmates’ relatives. They will be allowed to go inside and stay overnight until Dec. 25.

The CPDRC dancing inmates rose to fame when the video of their performance of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” was uploaded on YouTube in 2007. The video now has more than 54 million views.