Chile Thriller Protest

Personally I am a little jaded by Michael Jackson flashmobs, but this example from Chile in June 2011 takes it to another level of political protest with around 3000 students, many dressed up as zombies, dancing to Thriller by the Presidential palace in Santiago.

The dance off was part of the ongoing student movement about the funding of education, with zombies wearing signs saying 'died in debt'.

Dancing arrests at the Jefferson Memorial

Some heavy-handed arrests at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC on Saturday.

It was the latest in a saga that started in 2008 when Mary Oberwetter and a group of friends celebrated President Jefferson's 265th birthday by dancing silently at the memorial while listening to music through headphones. Police ordered them to stop and arrested them when they didn't. Oberwetter sued on free speech grounds, but last week the appeals court ruled that her conduct was prohibited "because it stands out as a type of performance, creating its own center of attention and distracting from the atmosphere of solemn commemoration".

So some others called a silent dancing flashmob last weekend at the same location. By the looks of it it was a low key event with just a few people dancing, but the Parks police response was vicious with 5 arrests including one guy slammed down on the floor seconds after singing a version of Men Without Hats' 'Safety Dance':

We can dance if we want to
We can leave your friends behind
Cause the cops won't dance [it's 'friends' not 'cops' in the original]
And if they don't dance
Well they're no friends of mine



(OK it seems that the guy getting thrown to the floor is Adam Kokesh, self-publicist with a decidely odd cocktail of political beliefs. Just to be clear, arrests like these are not evidence of 'Obama's communist police state' as right wing 'libertarians' suggest, but they do raise some fundamental questions about the boundaries of freedom - as the original court case highlighted, what is the distinction between 'freedom of speech' and freedom of movement of the body in a public place?).

Vietnam Craig David 'Flashmob'

Some Vietnamese 'flashmob' action, June 18 2010. OK this one clearly isn't a genuine unlicensed, spontaneous gathering. It's a choreographed stunt, seemingly sponsored by a crisp manufacturer. But hey, a couple of hundred people dancing to Lady Gaga, Beyonce and Craig David (Insomnia) on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City is something to ponder on:

Russian Flashmobbers attacked by Nazis - then arrested

'Young people who gathered to celebrate spring by blowing bubbles at an annual flash mob in central St. Petersburg were attacked by a group of suspected neo-Nazis who mistook the gathering for a gay pride event, flash mob organizers said...Some 500 people stood blowing bubbles on the steps of Gorkovskaya metro station and in the surrounding Alexandrovsky Park at about 4 p.m. Sunday — the agreed time for the start of the flash mob — when about 30 men ran up and started beating them and firing rubber bullets.

Several people fell to the ground before the attackers fled at the sight of approaching OMON riot police officers. A reporter saw officers detain at least one attacker. Police also detained about 30 bubble-blowers for five hours on suspicion of walking on the grass, a charge that they denied, organizers said. Unconfirmed media reports said at least two participants were injured, one with a concussion and the other from a rubber bullet from an attacker’s gun.... The annual bubble-blowing flash mob, known alternatively as “Dream Flash” and “Soapy Peter,” presents itself as nonpolitical and mostly attracts teenagers... Several minutes after the attackers struck, OMON police declared the flash mob an illegal gathering and started to drive the participants, many of whom continued to blow bubbles, away from the metro and then out of the park with the aid of two police vehicles. “Put away your bubbles,” one police officer barked through a megaphone'.

(full story at Moscow Times, 21 April 2010)

Dancing flashmob riot in Berkeley

Last week in Berkeley, California, a flashmob dance party on the University ended up in a riot as students protesting against cuts in education funding took their party off the campus and into the streets.

According to Occupy California: 'In Sproul Plaza of UC Berkeley, hundreds gathered for a dance party that began around 10pm on Thursday, February 25. At the peak of the party (around 12am) the 250 people dancing surrounded the loudspeakers as together they moved farther into campus'.

After temporarily occupying a vacant University building, the mobile party moved off campus and into surrounding streets: 'Some 500 people were present, a combination of observers and protesters. The dance party continued to rage on as more and more people took the intersection, by now at least three hundred. Then without a clear reason, the police began to descend on the people in the streets. Some ran to the sidewalks to observe from a distance, others stood their ground, refusing to move. The police pushed people with their batons, the protesters pushed back and some were caught in the middle. Then an officer grabbed a woman at random and smashed her head to the ground... What had started as a dance party and occupation quickly turned into a direct confrontation with the police, whom had been following the protesters through out the night'. Shop windows were smashed and some bins set alight.

The context is an ongoing movement of student occupations and demonstrations across California prompted by cuts in education funding and increases in tuition fees.

Police Assault at Liverpool Street

Last year's tube party in protest against the drinking ban on the London Underground resulted in a court case last week in which a man was acquitted of assault after being beaten up by police at Liverpool Street Station. The following story comes from The Sunday Mirror (9 August 2009):

These shocking pictures show a man cowering in fear after being punched by a police officer.
A PC lunges at Chris Leonard and grabs him by the neck as police try to clear a train station packed with party-goers. A PC lunges at Chris Leonard and grabs him by the neck as police try to clear a train station packed with party-goers.

Astonishingly it was Chris – who claims he was punched in the face up to four times and got two suspected cracked ribs when the officer threw him to the floor and knelt on him – who was charged with assault. This week the case was thrown out of court after prosecutors reviewed a police video and Press pictures of the incident. Chris, 26, is now preparing to sue the police over the assault and for malicious prosecution and false imprisonment.

And he is planning to go to the Independent Police Complaints Commission about PC James Hendrick – the officer he claims assaulted him at Liverpool Street station in May last year.
PC Hendrick is in the Met’s Territorial Support Group. Other members of the same squad were linked to the death of bystander Ian Tomlinson during the G20 protests in London this April.
Chris, a land surveyor with no criminal record, was one of around 1,500 revellers packing the station. The Last Orders On The Tube events were held the night before a ban on drinking on public transport came into force.

Chris says: “It was a really good atmosphere. There were loads of people drinking and dancing. I maybe had about four or five beers, but I wasn’t drunk.” At around 11pm, senior officers decided to clear the station and around 50 PCs formed a line across the concourse. Police digital camera footage shows them coming forward in an effort to move the crowd towards the exit. In the footage, Chris can be seen smiling and talking to some of the officers.

He says: “I did join in with some of the others giving the police some banter but - we were asking why they were pushing us back.” He adds: “At first, it was all good-natured. But as we got closer to the escalators near the exit there was less room to move and people were starting to get a bit crushed and panicked. The police shouted at us to get back and people shouted that we couldn’t move any more. I thought they were being heavy-handed. I was getting quite scared because I realised I was trapped and I felt like there was no way out. I also realised people behind me in the crowd were throwing things at the police – I saw beer cans flying over my head.”

Moments before he confronted Chris, the police film shows PC Hendrick being hit in the face by what appears to be a can of beer. He turns and briefly puts his hand to his face and seem agitated before he rejoins his colleagues in the advancing police line – some of whom have their batons drawn.

Chris says: “I only noticed him seconds before he hit me. I just had time to realise, ‘Oh god, he’s coming for me.’ I backed away as far as I could, but I couldn’t get away from him. I remember saying, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ as I saw him draw his fist back. He hit me three or four times in the mouth and nose in quick succession. I was left disorientated but could hear people around me shouting and screaming at him.”

Pictures taken by Press photographers appear to show PC Hendrick lunge at Chris’s nose and grab his neck as blood drips from his mouth

Tango for Peace

Yesterday was the 4th anniversary of the jihadist bombs in London, which killed 52 people. One response was TangoCommute:

'To mark the 4th anniversary of the 7th July terrorist attack on London, TangoCommute aims to transform the sense of separation between people into one of connectivity with a public display of passion for peace. Participants have an opportunity to make a modest contribution to understanding conflict and building peace through the embrace of the dance; silently, free from judgements or statements and including all members of society.

This year on 7th of July, from 6 to 7 pm, dance couples will spread across seven of London’s bridges and seven railway stations. Equipped with only headphones and their partners, they will silently dance the tango amidst the commuters'.

They did something similar at Waterloo station last year (pictured), and on Blackfriars Bridge last month. Indeed they want to spread tango love elsewhere: 'TangoCommute - passion for peace is a new dance movement expressing compassion and connectivity during the evening commute in city centres worldwide'.

Lots more pictures on Flickr

Michael Jackson Flashmobs

The inevitable Michael Jackson tribute flashmob drew a big crowd to London's Liverpool Street station this evening, the idea being to do a mass Moonwalk. The police prevented it happening in the train station itself (scene of several other silent raves in the past), so it relocated to the street outside. It doesn't look like there was much space for full on Moonwalking, but clearly there was lots of milling about, singing and dancing while the traffic ground to a halt. There was also Jackson-inspired flashmob dancing in the streets in downtown Toronto and by the Ferry building in San Francisco. Any way a good example of instant mobilisation, less than 24 hours after Jackson's death was announced.

The sense of slightly aimless but enjoyable chaos reminded me of my closest encounter with Michael Jackson, on his British tour in 1988. It was shortly after the 1987 release of the Bad album, the third of his great Quincy Jones-produced trilogy (after Off the Wall and Thriller). MJ and his sister Janet ruled the dancefloor (or at least the electronic dance pop end of it) at that time, the latter with the excellent 1986 Control album (produced by Jam and Lewis). I remember the week Bad was released and hearing it for the first time in a club in South London (Dance Chase at the Alexandra on Clapham Common), everyone was talking about it.

In August 1988 Michael Jackson was playing in Roundhay Park, Leeds, and as I was staying not too far away in Sheffield we decided to go and check it out. We didn't have tickets but figured we might be able to sneak in. At the Park it was apparent that thousands of others had had the same idea. As well as the ticket holders inside the gig, surrounded by a high fence, there was a big crowd in the park. Some were content with listening to the music and seeing the part of the screen next to the stage that was visible from outside but many others were determined to find a way in, using crowd barriers as ladders to climb over fences (only to be chased out again), and generally giving the runaround to the police, out in force in the park with dogs and horses.

It was all semi-riotous and put me in mind of 'Starlust - the Secret Fantasies of Fans' by Fred and Judy Vermorel (1985). Basically their thesis was that rather than simply being integrated into the capitalist spectacle, extreme fan behaviour created a kind of surplus energy of utopian romanticism that was potentially disruptive of everyday life.

Michael Jackson may have been a fucked up kid who grew up to fuck up other kids, let alone his crimes against good music (I refer to some of his awful schmaltzy ballads), but in the intersection of his best tracks, dancefloors, and the desires of dancers many interesting moments have arisen - and no doubt will continue to do so.

More Silent Raves

Earlier this month, police staged an operation to prevent a silent rave at Glasgow's central station. Elsewhere people did manage to put on similar events - 100 people danced at Chorlton Green (Manchester), apparently to celebrate somebody's birthday. In Milton Keynes, up to 400 people partied in the main shopping centre (see below):



Not so silent in Milton Keynes was a party in a Church Hall. The 18 year old organiser received a police caution for fraud after booking the hall for a family '50th birthday party' and then inviting hundreds of people via Facebook who apparently left the 'area strewn with broken glass, cans, beer bottles and glow sticks'.

Flash Mob Simulacrum Continued

Following the analysis here of the recent T-Mobile pseudo-flash mob, I notice that Stewart Home was actually inadvertently present at Liverpool Street station when this was being filmed. He notes: 'This definitely wasn’t a flash mob because the filming was still going on when I returned to Liverpool Street station an hour later. Coming back I noticed a sign that claimed if I went into the area being used to fabricate the ad, I had consented to being filmed… Not so, since I hadn’t seen this sign until after I’d been through the station once, and besides which not everybody can read English… Liverpool Street station is a public space and a lot of people have no choice about using it if they need to catch the tube or an overground train'. Naturally he has demanded payment from T-Mobile should they use his image!

In the comments to Stewart's post, someone mentions Baudrillard and his notion of the Simulacrum. I must admit, though not an uncritical admirer, my first thought when I read that T-Mobile had created a simulation of a flash mob (in itself arguably a simulation of a Reclaim the Streets party), and that subsequently thousands of people had created a real flashmob partly as a simulation of this simulation - thus rendering the notion of what was 'real' at least problematic - my first thought was 'Blimey, Baudrillard eat your heart out'. Unfortunately Baudrillard is no longer around to spin a few moments of flashmobbing into a pithy if incomprehensible epigram.

Liverpool Street Closed by Silent Dance

Even though I stand by my critique of last month's T-Mobile pseudo-flashmob, the advert may have had the effect of amplifying the real silent rave phenomenon, judging by last night's events in London:

'Liverpool Street Station was overrun by dancers who had congregated on the concourse for a silent disco, organised via the social networking website. The crowd, who were all listening to music through headphones, broke into dance at 7pm on Friday night in a scene which aped the advert which was filmed at the station last month. The flash mob caused police to close the station for around 90 minutes due to fears of overcrowding. Participants, some of whom had travelled hundreds of miles to take part, said the station was so packed that there was no room to dance. Some revellers climbed on top of a ticket office to perform their routines, while others climbed notice boards and other station furniture... Word of the the event, called Liverpool Street Station Silent Dance, was circulated on the internet through Facebook.

Jennie Tuck, 16, a student from London, said: "It was an amazing atmosphere. Everyone assembled underneath the departures board and watched the clocks for a 10 second countdown to seven o'clock. When the clock struck seven, everyone went mad. People were dancing and screaming and jumping up and down. One guy completely stripped off and loads of others were crowd surfing."

A City of London Police spokeswoman, who was on the scene said: "We had to close the station because it was completely overcrowded. There were around 12,000 people here" (source: Telegraph, 7 February 2009).

On Facebook, people already seem to be planning a similar event in Trafalgar Square next Friday 13th February at 7 pm. What we really need is somebody to turn up with a sound system on a truck to really take this to another level.

The Sound of Silence

'Imagine walking into a party where everybody is wearing wireless headphones and is singing and dancing to an inaudible beat. This was the vision of the founders and creators of the Silent Disco' (more here)

Hmmm... it's one thing people dancing with headphones at a flashmob style event, but I am deeply sceptical about silent club nights , with people paying good money to wear headphones (the above quote is from an article about a Silent Disco night in Bath next month) - even if they are listening to a mix broadcast to them by the DJ rather than to their own individual soundtrack.

The problem is that even if people are dancing in synchrony to the same music (see Global Raver's criticism of iPod raves), the common soundtrack is only part of the collective experience of dancing - even in the loudest club there is generally the possibility of some kind of conversation, something that is presumably not possible while listening to music on headphones.

In addition what goes in through the ears is only part of how we sense music. Dance music in particular entails feeling the bass in different parts of our bodies. I really noticed the absence of this last year when I saw Kode 9 DJing in what is usually an indie pub in New Cross (Amersham Arms) - playing through a bass-lite sound system set up for bands, it felt like a key part of the music was missing. With headphones even more of the music must be missing - you just cannot generate the same bass sensation through the ears alone.

Of course I've nothing against the Silent Disco people, I'm sure it's fun as a novelty. My real concern is that it might pave the way for the future with 'noise pollution' being used as an excuse to require clubs to replace speakers with headphones. That really would be the end.

Pseudo flashmob at Liverpool Street Station

Earlier this week there was an apparent flashmob at Liverpool Street - several hundred people dancing in the railway station. But it wasn't a unlicensed gathering for the pleasure of dancing in public - it was in fact arranged by mobile phone company T-mobile to film an advert.

I must admit I tend to see flashmobs as a kind of free party-lite version of Reclaim the Streets. There's something rather apologetic about turning up somewhere, having a quick bop in near silence and then disappearing after half an hour. On the day in 1996 when Reclaim the Streets met up at Liverpool Street, thousands of us closed down the M41 Motorway for the afternoon, with big sound systems. We certainly didn't get a positive write up in the Daily Mail.

Still I guess the flashmob still offers the transgressive thrill of temporarily transforming a transport hub or a shopping centre into a party zone in the company of strangers. Liverpool Street station has seen some genuine flashmobs. There was last year's Tube Party as well as the event when hundreds of people wore Rick Astley masks and sung Never Gonna Give You Up (1980s pop hit - probably unknown to anybody reading this outside of the UK). In October 2006, there was a Mobile Clubbing flashmob, with a crowd dancing to their ipods.

But a choreographed telephone advert is a fake copy of something that has already been diluted.

There was a genuine flashmob today though at Heathrow airport, protesting against plans for a third runway. It doesn't seem to have involved much dancing, other than a large conga dance procession.

Dancing at the Royal Exchange

Last week - 18th November - people gathered outside the Royal Exchange in the City of London (financial district) for a mobile clubbing event. You know the kind of thing, flashmob meets up and people dance to their own music on their headphones, then disperse. Life in London and Make Shift Media were there - the latter reporting 'There were babies, and men in suits, and cyclists, and students, and hipsters, and hippies… they were swaying, and rocking out, and popping, and skanking... Every once in a while a spontaneous cheer would erupt, people would throw their arms up and whoop and dance harder for a minute. So much fun to be among city strangers, staying warm in the chilly November night, all boogying down!'


As the financial crisis deepens, perhaps so does people's focus on the financial districts of London and other cities. In London at least this is an area that many people never go to unless they work there and it can be quite ghostly at weekends when less people are around. So it's good to see some streetlife returning to the area that was once the heart of London life, not just banking. Further east at Canary Wharf there was also o a Halloween dancing on the grave of capitalism event with ghosts and witches (on the same day there was an anti-capitalist Zombie Walk in Amsterdam).


The place where people danced last week outside the Royal Exchange in London was where hundreds of (mainly) punky protestors were penned in by police during the March 1984 Stop the City 'Carnival Against War, Oppression and Destruction'. And in June 1999, thousands took part in the riotous Carnival Against Capital in the area, with music from large mobile sound systems, not just from ipods. More to come I am sure...

Milton Keynes Sanctuary Flash Mob

Here's a flashmob with a sense of history - on Saturday 30th August 2008 a couple of hundred people turned up at Ikea in Milton Keynes and danced with whistles and horns for five minutes before dispersing. The reason? The Ikea was built on the site of The Sanctuary: 'The Sanctuary Music Arena was a 3,000 capacity music venue in Denbigh North, Milton Keynes in the UK. It opened its doors in 1992, billed as the first and only designer dance venue in the country.The Sanctuary saw some of the UK's first legal Raves and was pivotal in the development of the Drum and Bass and Hardcore music scenes. The Sanctuary played host to the UK's biggest dance music promoters, including Fantazia, Obsession, Dreamscape, Helter Skelter, Slammin Vinyl and Hardcore Heaven. Now its gone, gone to make way for a new Asda, an Ikea store and the MK Dons football stadium but even though it's been demolished the memories will always stay with the people that raved there' (Source: Facebook Sanctuary Memorial Group).



"It started as a normal day of retail therapy at one of Ikea's flagship British stores - that was until hundreds of clubbers went wild in the aisles as part of a Facebook flash rave. Shoppers in the furniture store in Milton Keynes watched with amazement as the ravers partied in tribute to a now defunct nightclub. The Sanctuary Reunion was held to remember a club bulldozed in 2004 to make way for the store and was organised through a group on social networking website Facebook. Ageing clubbers, including a pregnant woman and families with their children, danced for around five minutes in the textiles department on Saturday afternoon at 3.30pm... jumping up and down, some wearing fluorescent vests and others blowing whistles" (Source: Metro, 2 September 2008)

"2008 Saturday 30th of August...We arrived at the store a little after 2pm. The area was over run with Mk Don supporters so it was hard to tell if people were turning up. There was definatly a police presence that you wouldn't expect so the mood got a bit paranoid. Ikea had put some barriers up at the front so they could separate the in coming and out going customers. We had got in surprisingly quickly so we had an hour to kill in store. The staff presence was massive and to be honest me and my friends were feeling really edgy. Once we had hung around in textiles for 10 mins or so, loads more people started arriving. You could see couples giggling as they pretended to look at rugs and groups of lads coming through shouting "Yeah heres textiles!". By 3.20pm it was blatantly obvious what was going to happen and the police and Ikea staff were all in good spirits. The area was great and as soon as we started grouping together more knew where to go. Just before time, Ikea staff stopped more from coming through... when the horn blew the place went crazy, whistles and ravers galore. It was a shame that more people were taking pictures than dancing but everyone (and their kids) were having a wicked time. 2 minutes seemed to take forever after a few minutes, some hip hip horays and applause the group broke and went to buy their bits and go for a drink. It was a wicked day had by all!" (Source: Facebook Sanctuary Reunion Group)

Tube Party in London

The dust is still settling after last Saturday night's party on the London underground. For people outside of London, the basic story is this: a new Conservative Mayor has been elected for London - Boris Johnson (replacing the socialist Ken Livingstone). One of his first acts was to ban drinking on the London underground train system, a ban due to come in on the 1st June. On Facebook various groups were set up calling for a party on the Circle Line on Saturday 31st May- a final drink and a protest against prohibition (the Circle Line trains, as the name suggests, go round central London in a loop rather than from A to B - ideal for parties as there is no endpoint where the train stops and everybody gets off).

So on Saturday, thousands of people converged on the Circle Line, some in fancy dress. Lots of people had a great time. At Liverpool Street station, where people were evacuated from the train, there was a sound system and mass dancing in the station. Obviously there was some chaos, with the police closing down six tube stations over the night, and 17 people getting arrested later after some drunken behaviour (perhaps not that many considering the numbers, and maybe not that many more than on average weekend). There's loads of photos, accounts and film footage all over the web - a video from Space Hijackers shows people dancing to The Prodigy's Out of Space with a sound system in the carriage (and pausing when the train gets into the station so as not to draw attention to themselves):



There's a rare positive press report by Johann Hari, 'They arrested the gorilla!' (Evening Standard, 02.06.08):

'On the concourse at Liverpool Street station, two men dressed as Tower Bridge are dancing a slow waltz. Their partners are a gorilla and a sex doll that has Boris's beaming face. This is not a strange dream: it is the last party of Ken Livingstone's London. When I first signed up on Facebook for a final boozy toast to Ken on the Tube, I imagined a few hundred people would appear - but I underestimated my city. As I enter the station, the crowds begin: goths and bankers, Asian teenagers and posh white women, all waving their bottles of Guinness and Blue Nun. The plan is that we will all clamber on to the first three Circle line trains to leave the station after 9.02pm. As I push through, I bump into a man who is on his knees, a tube in his mouth, with his friend pouring lager directly into his gullet. A chicken carrying a banner which says "People Not Profit" tells me: "Boris symbolises everything we hate. He's not our London." Every time a train pulls in, the crowd whoops and yells "Ken! Ken!"

Hundreds heave on to the first party-train, but as it leaves the Tannoy announces: "This is a security alert. Evacuate immediately"... More than a thousand people throng in the centre of the station [Liverpool St] , and I mingle among the booze fumes and costumes. A lean Brixton-boy says: "I think the drink ban is probably a good idea - but let's party!" Then the crowd is suddenly united with one chant: "Boris is a wanker!" A group of Essex lads dressed as the Village People stand high on the platforms above, leading a stationwide cover-version of YMCA. A conga line forms and, at 10.17pm, a sound system covered with Free Tibet stickers appears. We all begin to dance, and there is a random cry of "Dalai Lama! Dalai Lama!"

At 11.01pm, boys gyrate on top of ticket machines, and a girl rides the information sign like it is a pony. A friend who got on the party train calls. "They arrested the gorilla!" he cries. At 11.14pm some idiot starts smashing bottles. Other people tell him to stop, and a few guys start trying to clear up the crunchy carpet of cans and bottles so it doesn't look so bad. But it's too late: the police, who have been watching from the platforms above, swoop... The police form a line and start pushing people out. A few more protesters foolishly throw bottles. Everyone is chanting again. Pushed out onto Bishopsgate, the crowd looks now as if it will dissipate. But then, suddenly, a bongo-player appears from nowhere, and we all begin to dance again, long into the night. Looking with a smile at the throng, a girl dressed as a Fifties starlet in a shimmering dress, hands me a biscuit, and says: "This is so London, isn't it?"

Silent Rave, New York

From New York Times, 20th April 2008:

'on Friday evening, at the south end of Union Square near East 14th Street. More than a thousand people, most of them young, gathered for a dance party without audible music, known as a silent rave. It was striking for what could not be heard.... A mass of people — a head-bobbing, arms-above-the-head, conga-line-forming, full-tilt boogie-woogie — emitted what seemed like no sound but rather music visible. Everyone danced in place, listening to an iPod and prancing to his or her own playlist. For long minutes, in the distance, only the square’s ever-present bongo players could be heard, while close up only shoes, or bare feet, could be heard padding on concrete. Video cameras and cellphones were everywhere. A man explained to his friend: “It’s a silent rave. Everyone’s dancing to whatever’s on their iPod.”

The mastermind behind the silent rave was one Jonnie Wesson, 18, a British exchange student spending a year at the Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn Heights. Silent raves are popular in Europe, especially London, where he grew up, Mr. Wesson said. “The basic premise is that a hundred or a thousand or a few thousand people all turn up in a public place, turn on their own headphones and dance.” He added: “It’s always fantastic and weird to see thousands of people dancing silently. It’s always in a public space, but it’s not meant to cause disruption, but only because it’s the last place you’d expect that sort of thing.”... As is the case with much of his generation, Mr. Wesson organized the silent rave through a social networking Web site, in this case Facebook. By late afternoon on Friday, nearly 7,000 people had responded.

It began at 6:17 p.m. “It’s a random time that fits in with the ethos of the flash mob,” said Mr. Wesson, standing below Union Square’s giant statue of George Washington. At the appointed hour, people rushed toward Mr. Wesson, shouting the time from the digital watch of a passer-by, counting down with him as if it were New Year’s Eve. By 11 p.m., the rave had dwindled to several hundred still-whirling people.



Lots of great photos by Ballulah here, who describes the event as follows:

"This was a flashmob style event, all these kids gathered at the south end of Union Square at 6:30...after a countdown they all put their headphones on and had their own private silent raves. Every few minutes or so "the pineapple" would appear and get passed around to the sound of lots of cheering. Beach balls were tossed. Styrofoam was beaten to confetti. Water balloons and/or bottles were tossed upwards. The skaters were very confused. And I swear I heard a kid in raver pants say to his friend, "I have a ton of glowsticks in my pants," and proceeded to pull up his enormous pantleg, and sure enough he had a WHOLE MESS of glowsticks velcroed to his calf. Another guy was singing Foreigner on top of his lungs".

See also Dancing Flashmob, London, 2007

San Francisco Bus Stop Rave

From Golden Gate Xpress, 22 September 2007:

People overflowed into the street and crowded around the westbound bus stop at Haight St. and Fillmore St on Friday night. They whooped and threw glow sticks in the air, dancing freely to music pumping out of the rigged bus stop and a nearby car, and green lights flashed from the tiny shelter where people usually just wait for the 6, 7, and 71 bus lines.

This impromptu rave, like the pillow fights, zombie days, and big wheel races that came before it, is an example of people in San Francisco deciding to create their own fun for free. These peaceful free-for-alls help people forget about all the stresses and serious concerns of the day and just cut loose for an exciting good time.

This rave was organized by Brent Lowteck, 25, a San Francisco native who has rigged bus stops at least five times before this. SF State alumni Leslie Carroll, 24, and Alex Oestreicher, 22, both heard about the rave on laughingsquid.com. “It shows the character of the city, that we don’t take ourselves too seriously, that we can get together and have fun at a bus stop in the Lower Haight on a Friday night,” said Oestreicher... Bus riders were also surprised at the crowd cheering for the bus as they pulled up to their stop, but none were annoyed by the ravers, one saying it’s a great thing to do on a Friday night.

The police came to the site three times before 11:00 p.m. The ravers would turn off the music, light up cigarettes, and stand around waiting for the authorities to leave. As soon as they did, the party was back on... By 11:00, the crowd was about half as large, but the remaining few kept the party going, having fun for free and clutching their brown-bagged beer bottles as they danced into the night.

There's a video of an earlier event here.

Brooklyn Bridge Street Party

One night of Fire in New York (Village Voice, July 16 2007) :

'Global terror, the NYPD's increasingly restrictive rules governing public gatherings, and a city economy based on honing New Yorkers into efficiency drones has sucked much of the spontaneity from New York City's street life. So it was a rare act of liberation to watch a crowd of thousands—sans permit—swamp the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday for a renegade street party known as "One Night of Fire."More amazing still, the cops let it happen.

Perhaps the NYPD brass figured there was just no stopping the exuberantly costumed hordes who began converging from both sides of the Brooklyn Bridge at the assigned time of 7:57 pm. Organized via email and listservs, the party came with instructions to "wear white, the more costumed the better. You are the angels that keep this city alive and untamed." People did that and then some, showing up in wings, festooned in sequins and gossamer threads, smothered in white plastic bags, or covered in face paint.

Prodded along by "coaxers" dressed in red and black with flaming cherry motifs, all sorts of drummers, pipers, stilt-walkers, angels, devils, and curious creatures filled both the pedestrian and bike pathways—to the great annoyance of commuting cyclists forced to dismount and wade through what felt like a cross between Mardi Gras, Burning Man, and a Grateful Dead show parking lot.

No one knew where the party was headed, which was half the fun, the point being just to be there and test the bounds of what's possible in this increasingly bounded city. A 9:01, a great whooping went up as a txt msg came through to "follow the cavalry!" That turned out to be a guy in a rubber horse-head pedaling a bike and blaring what sounded like a foghorn. We flooded back into Manhattan and into City Hall Park, where people frolicked in the fountain for several minutes, then on to the Q and R trains to Brooklyn.

It was so packed, it took half an hour just to get on the subway, despite the gyrating exhortations of several half-naked stilt walkers and Carny gals urging people on. For a second, it looked like things might turn ugly when a half dozen cops armed with with assault rifles jumped out of a black SUV on Broadway, accompanied by several police vans. The cops eyed the crowd warily, then just as quickly got back in their SUV. But that was the closest things got to conflict.

Subway cars became moving discos, jammed with marching bands, ravers blaring boomboxes, pole dancers and a guy toting a cooler full of liquor-drenched cherries and other libations. And at Coney Island, police watched as a dozen or so fire twirlers whirled flames on the beach, accompanied by scattered bursts of fireworks. The commanding officer clapped as he ordered the cops to shut down the pyrotechnics. Later these same officers watched as skinny dippers dashed into the waves. They eventually ordered everybody out of the water'.

Pictures by Sarah Ferguson. More reports and pictures at NYC Fashion Geek

May Day Dancing in the Streets

A fairly low key May Day in London yesterday. At Canary Wharf (big business centre) about 100 people danced to a samba band, having previously entered the area disguised in office suits (an event initiated by Space Hijackers). They ended up partying on the Thames beach. In South London, there was dancing round a maypole in Kennington Park to the sounds of Soca, Gogol Bordello (a CD not the band) and a man with a mandolin. A banner read 'Workers of the World Relax'. Elsewhere in the UK there was a street party with sound system in Glasgow.

Globally, things were heavier in some parts of the world. In Los Angeles, police used tear gas to disperse a crowd partying in MacArthur Park at the end of a May Day migrants' rights rally.