Eleven – Dance Walking London

Dance walking is a simple idea: gather a group of people together who each have their own MP3 player, give everyone a copy of the same mix track, and get everyone to push ‘play’ at the same time: then go dancing.  In the street.  Pretending that everything is a massive interactive nightclub. 

We met in a café in Camden Town, just around the corner from my office.  If you don’t know it, Camden is a magnet for tourists in the day time, and pleasure seeking party animals at night.  It’s a place where you can drink, go dancing, get a tattoo, buy weird clothing, and do loads of other things that I won’t go into.  I love the place, but it has taken me years to accept that I have ended up working in an area that some consider to be deeply fashionable.  A couple of weeks earlier a colleague said to me, ‘did you see that bloke on the street who was literally standing on his head?’  She had taken a photograph of him.  Sure enough, there was a bloke who was standing on his head, on the pavement, amidst loads of passers-by; it was his form of busking.  

I felt ridiculously ill prepared.  Rather than wearing spandex, shorts, trainers and a tight fitting vest or t-shirt, I was wearing a relatively smart office shirt and heavy motorcycle boots.  These were not the kind of shoes that you wore to go walking in, never mind dancing.  I had a very bad feeling about all this.  I wanted to go home.  I just wasn’t in the mood for this nonsense. I started to repeat a secret mantra of, ‘this dance walking Meetup is going to be okay… you’re going to look like a bloody fool, but then again, nobody will really care; this is Camden’.

‘Are you here as a part of the group?’

I turned around.  I met Amit who had travelled to Camden all the way from Hammersmith, West London, to participate in this insanity.

‘This place is amazing!  It’s almost as if it’s another country!  Are there any other places in London like this?’

I wracked my brains.  No.  There was no other place in London that was quite like Camden Town.

I then met Ellie.

‘You look familiar…’  Ellie said.

‘I do?’

‘Yes – are you a member of London Alternative Nightlife?’

‘No, I’ve not been to that one’.

‘How about Central London bisexuals?’

‘I’ve not been to that one either.’

It turned out that Ellie had seen me at a stand-up comedy Meetup a few months earlier.   

We were soon introduced to Simone, an outrageously bubbly German woman who turned out to be one of the co-organisers.  After about three quarters of an hour of chatting and general disorganisation, we left our meeting place to find a place on the street where we formed a rough circle.  It was then that I witnessed the miracle of enthusiasm and energy that was Emily.  Emily was an American who had a massive smile.  Unlike me, she was wearing sensible clothes: trainers, shorts and t-shirt.  This was her meetup, and this was her group, and she was the director of the dancers and the dance walk.  Andy volunteered to be the ‘lead’ since he knew the way from Camden to Primrose Hill, and Simone volunteered to go at the back.  I kept my hand steadfastly down.

‘Andy is going to lead, but if anyone wants to lead, if anyone want to take over and do what they feel seems right, then just go ahead and do it.  I’m making a video, and if anyone wants to take over this duty too, that is also okay…’

We were then asked to do some warm up exercises.

‘Rub your hands!  Feel that energy!  Feel that heat!  Now, raise your arms and move them out to one side as far as you can, until you stop seeing them – this is the boundaries of your space, your awareness space.  It’s important to be aware of what is going on, and who is around you.  Okay!  Stomp your feet!  Move your hips, move your arms…’  Emily’s warm-up made me feel profoundly uncomfortable for a number of reasons. The ‘circle’ and the use of some kind of method gave the ‘coming together’ a cultish tone, and this worried me.  Secondly, I also had the impending feeling that I was going to make a public spectacle of myself. 

‘Make a noise!’  There was some whooping and hollering.  As I gave an unenthusiastic flat ‘whoo', I had two thoughts: ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this sober’ and ‘it’ll all be over soon’.  After a communal countdown, we all pressed play on our personal audio devices and we were off.  

A lot of thought had clearly gone into the music mix.  It slowly music built up, increasing in tempo and volume until it reached an energetic peak.  Suddenly Andy was off, leaving what was (thankfully) quite a secluded spot and onto the busy Camden High Street.  It was only then that I fully appreciated the ridiculousness of the event.  We were sixteen people, all wearing headphones, all dancing, waving, stomping and whooping our way along the street to the same tunes.  To passers-by, we were whooping, clapping and dancing to the sound of traffic. 

The people we passed wore a range of different emotions, from a quite sensible, ‘what on earth are those idiots doing?’ to a smile which may have accompanied a thought of, ‘hey, that’s quite cool!’  Andy was an accomplished dancer.  Items in the street: bins, street lamps, signs, benches represented opportunities for physical improvisation.  Benches were jumped on; he pole danced around street signs.  He wore a smile that told everyone around him that he was having a fabulous time and that this kind of activity was entirely normal.

After half an hour, I asked myself some questions: ‘why isn’t this considered to be normal?  Why shouldn’t we dance more?  Why shouldn’t we use the free physical space in a way that is surrounding us in a fun way?’  Admittedly (and reluctantly) I started to enjoy the experience and people’s reactions.  Passers-by were offered head phones, and they started to dance too.  Most people smiled, and some took videos of us ‘throwing shapes’ at the entrance to Regent’s Park.  Nobody cared that I was wearing an office shirt and motorcycle boots; this just added to the colour of the whole event.

After an hour and twenty minutes, the dancing ended at the top of Primrose Hill.  It was a glorious day; the sun was out and we could see for miles.  Andy looked exhausted, but happy.  We didn’t chat much, since we didn’t really know what to say to each other, but we had all ‘dance walked’ for an hour and twenty minutes, burnt loads of calories and raised lots of smiles along the way.  I was both tired and thirsty, and relieved that I would never ever have to do this nonsense ever again. 

‘Before you go, we’ve got to get into a circle again… Everyone, hold hands’, demanded Emily.  I wasn’t going to able to sneak out.

‘Okay everyone! Can each of us make a noise to communicate how we’re feeling?’  One by one, we all made a funny noise.  I did my best to issue a vaguely enthusiastic whoop.

When we were all done, Emily said, ‘Thanks everyone!  Suggested donation is five pounds’.