Singing from the balconies! One nice thing about this crisis ... solidarity! “Guess you’re not living like a tourist anymore,” was the funny, truthful and somewhat gut-wrenching message of a friend the day the lockdown in Italy began. Today is day 6. My beloved Italia has been hit hard with the COVID19 epidemic. With the second largest elderly population in the world, the epidemic has meant a disproportionate amount of deaths in the country. So though I haven’t been worried about contracting it myself, this isn’t about me or someone like me who, if contracted it would probably have a sucky couple of weeks and then recover. It is about if someone like me contracted it and then spread it to a person with a complicated health history or an elderly person with a weakened immune system. Eerily orderly: Lines for the grocery store, each person one meter apart In a country with no concept (and no physical room really) for personal space, and in a city with reproachable hygie...
Dancing with Myself... and hundreds of other people
July 31 has been named National Dance Day in the U.S., and to celebrate this day, there was a event on the National Mall co-hosted by Nigel Lythgoe (below), co-creator of "So You Think You Can Dance."
In honor of this, there was also a not-so-secret flash mob choreographed by Tabitha & Napoleon. If you have not heard of a flash mob, it is when, in a crowd of people, about half of them know to break out in dance, song, movement etc at a specific time, while the other ones are left dumbfounded by what is going on around them.
I particularly like that Wikipedia describes a flash mob as "unusual", "pointless" and "brief": "A flash mob is large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then disperse."
Flash mob dances follow the same idea... with a little more direction. I wish I could say ours looked like this one below performed for Oprah...But no, it wasn't quite this way.
Our version...
(Ours might look a little less organized... it is just because we didn't have the Black Eyed Peas for inspiration).
Point is though: a flash mob is supposed to be inconspicuous. In this respect, our flash mob failed desperately, as it was announced on stage, practiced in a big group next to the crowd and then, as we were sent back to mingle with the people "not in-the-know," we were then asked to raise our hands if we knew the dance...
The element of surprise was definitely lacking. In the end, this "flash mob" was more of a choreographed performance of ordinary people which was filmed to air on "So You Think You Can Dance."
However, for dancers, this is pretty exciting. "So You Think You Can Dance" is the American Idol or Eurovision of the dance world.
This was my first time participating in a flash mob. Though I wrote about an opera flash mob in which I wished I had participated... Dancing I can do. Opera not so much. I can also do pointless and unusual, so perhaps I will find one of those for next time...
More Scenes from National Dance Day:
Russell Ferguson, krump dancer & winner of So You Think You Can Dance- Season six
Beat Ya Feet Kings- DC Dance Crew team featured on "America's Best Dance Crew"
Someone not particularly impressed by Flash mobs and National Dance Day OR...
someone who ACTUALLY knows the meaning in inconspicuous. Perhaps this was the scene right before jumping into the Flash mob dance. In that case, bravo!
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