FlashDance5 & The ‘Deep Agenda: Thoughts on A Year of FlashDancing!

If you have any good pix, please mail ’em, mine are lame as usual

Well, it has been a year since I started my little experiment with flash mob dancing & this past Saturday we celebrated in true FlashDance style with our 5th flash mob dance party! I guess it is no longer an experiment. FlashDance is BIG fun & I’m pretty damn happy about it. Thank you all so much!

After a year, I’ve come to realize that FD ties together a few threads of my life in unexpected ways and has become a much cooler thing for me personally than I ever imagined – call it the secret ‘Deep Agenda behind FlashDance 🙂
(Yes, I’m full enough of myself to have an agenda & I think everyone else should have one too!)

click here to watch a movie

Uh-oh soapbox alert! This is your last chance to skip ahead to the FD5 summary without hearing me philosophize….. Ok…. you’ve been warned 🙂

I’ve been thinking a lot about FD since the interview in SFist & realizing more and more that as much fun as it is just by being a kick-ass dance party, it means a lot more to me than that on numerous levels:

The first thing that comes to mind is that I lead a very very fortunate life and FD has become an expression of two cool parts of that fact: it is both a good example of the types of things that make my life so fun and yet simultaneously, it is an small opportunity for me to give a little of that fun back to the world that has been so good to me. I like that.

The other deeper thing about FD is that it also represents part of my greater political and social sense of what is needed in the world, and is a one of a a few ways I’m trying to accomplish those goals 🙂 Hah! The ‘Deep Agenda! I know, I know: “geez ‘Deep its just a hundred people dancing on a street corner – get over yourself” – ok that’s valid – but my point is this: I believe in human density and the urban spaces that that implies. Cities can be catalyzing, and are righteous & we need to make them work.

First off there are really cool things that can only happen when you get people living together in large diverse groups (art, culture, and thought all get a kick in the pants in urban centers) and just as importantly our civilization will only work ecologically if we all start living in dense urban centers* It’s not that I think that urban living is perfect – god knows it isn’t – its just that it can be a wonderful thing if we do it right, and we HAVE to do it right if we want any of the natural world to survive.

And that brings us back to Flashdance – an expression of urbanity at its finest in my not-so-humble-opinion. Yeah it is a small thing, but it is a nice small thing. And thus for me I love it because it ties together so much of what I care about (the environment, this City, people, dancing) into one “random act of kindness” package that is very much me.

So thanks to all you Flashdancers for making me so happy. This isn’t what I set out to do, I was just trying for the kick-ass dance party part, but I’m fascinated to see what it has become. Let’s hope it keeps working!

‘deep

* to all my fellow enviros who talk about living out in the country by yourself? Talk to the hand! What happens when everyone on the planet wants to do that? What makes you get to & no one else?

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FD5 Summary:
So Powell & Market was a GREAT location – we added in a different cross section of people (shoppers, tourists, bridge & tunnelers, & some homeless folks) which is always fun! There was a girl celebrating her 16th brirthday with a weekend in SF with her Mom & best friends – we sang her Happy Birthday (rock on Jocelyn!) & a guy celebrating his 40th (I think) – (many more Kokoe!)

A few Random thoughts:

• This one & the last one seemed to have been around 100 people dancing with 120-150 people showing up over the course of the night. That suggests the numbers have stabilized or even dropped 🙁 since FD3 (120 people dancing). But the list has grown dramatically since FD3….. hmmmm…. should I be worried? Maybe 3 was just an anomaly & this is the size I should expect, or maybe people are getting bored? maybe people are starting to take FD for granted? Maybe that is a good thing? Hmmm…. I don’t know what to make of this.
• It is clear I need a bigger sound system – I think I’ll start a collection at FD6….
• I was blasted by too many requests – I need to find a way to manage that situation better.
• The list is at 674 members.
• There are a couple of other cool videos at General Fuzz’s site.
• I need to find another Madonna song I like – I love 3 songs of hers (Like A Prayer, Ray of Light, Die Another Day), & someone always requests Madonna….
• I’m very happy with my new tradition of starting the festivities off with “Flash” by Queen.
• Speaking of music – I give my playlist a B…. not quite as good as FD4 but a fabulous time nonetheless (click to see it as an iTunes iMix you can buy songs from)
  
  • Flash – Queen
  • Lucky Star – Basement Jaxx & Dizzee Rascal
  • My Prerogative (Single Version) – Bobby Brown
  • Milkshake (DJ Zinc Radio Edit) – Kelis
  • Flash Light – Parliament
  • Give It To Me Baby – Rick James
  • Sum Of Us – Jurassic 5
  • P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing) – Michael Jackson
  • Higher Ground – Stevie Wonder
  • Different Sound – Teddybears
  • SexyBack – Justin Timberlake
  • True Skool – Coldcut featuring Roots Manuva
  • Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Sex Machine, Pt. 1 – James Brown
  • Respect – Aretha Franklin
  • Joints & Jam – Black Eyed Peas
  • Don’t Start Me Down – Pink vs. Electric Light Orchestra
  • Supersoulfighter – Lenny Kravitz
  • The Way You Move – OutKast & Sleepy Brown
  • Excellent – Blackalicious
  • Ray Of Light – Madonna
  • Beware (Jay-Z Remix) – Panjabi MC
  • Callin it Back – AC/DC v. Lyrics Born
  • ‘Bout Action (Featuring Lyrics Born, Lateef, Vursatyl, And The Gift Of Gab) – Lyrics Born
  • Family Affair – Mary J. Blige
  • Baby I’m A Star – Prince
  • Let’s Go Crazy – Prince
  • We Don’t Stop – Michael Franti & Spearhead
  • I Want You Back – The Jackson 5