Date: 09/29/2006

Category: · Writing » Interview · Writing  » Topic  » misc

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Dust off your dancing shoes, San Francisco! You DO have dancing shoes, don't you? No, your galoshes don't count. Wait, have you been wearing those since Folsom? Eww.

Aaaaaaaaanyway, this Saturday, at 8pm on the Van Ness side of City Hall, a gaggle of frolickers plan to converge and dance. (Backup location: Patricia's/Hayes Green.)It's Flashdance Four, a temporary party hosted by local flashmobby gadfly Amandeep Jawa. He brings speakers and turntables (well, a laptop); it's up to the coalescing crowd of strangers to bring the dancing. Enough out of us, though -- let's hear what's up with Amandeep:

So... what on Earth are you doing?

With my flashdances? Well a bunch of things:
- Trying to leave things better than I found them...
- Getting to play DJ... and dance to stuff I want to dance to.
- Bringing people together
- Proving what kind of fun you can only have in dense urban spaces!
- Shakin' my ass.

How many people have been turning up? What's the crowd like?

The number of people turning up has been rising steadily. The first one had maybe 80 people show up over the course of the evening, with 50 people dancing at any one time. The second had 100 people show up with maybe 80 people dancing at any one time. And the third one had maybe 120 people show up over the course of the evening & 100 people dancing at any one time. The crowd is phenomenal and the best part - lost of random folks, mostly 25-35 but some younger and some older. There is always a great fun & warm vibe - not too many cooler-than-thou types or drunken idiots.

How much behind-the-scenes work goes into a flashdance?

There was a lot of behind the scenes work at first - though I already had some stuff done: I DJ friends' parties whenever I can so I already have a laptop full of well-organized dance music. Then, once I decided to make this thing happen, there was a fair bit of work: borrowing equipment from my friends, advertising to everyone I could, making a website & email list, getting over my fear of embarrassment. But now it is just deciding when and where, sending out email to my list, getting my gear together before the event, strapping it all to my bike, & finally getting it to the site.

Was there something that inspired you to start holding flashdances?

Yes - two things: I was in Paris last summer & all along this one area of the Seine there were these free, open-air, nightly salsa parties that had grown up organically I was told. They were fantastic & I thought - we could do this! Though since I'm not a big salsa monster, I knew I wanted one that was more funk, hip-hop, and pop. The second inspiration was one of my Halloween costumes: I was a full body disco-ball with built-in speakers last year (pix: http://www.deeptrouble.com/pixpages/halloween2005) and everywhere I went became a roving dance party - which was the most fun I've ever had at Halloween. That is what convinced me I could do it.

Have you ever gotten in trouble for holding a flashdance?

Not yet. The second one, at Church & Market (in front of the Safeway steps) got called in for noise (lame!) 30 minutes before I was planning on shutting down anyway, so I promised the cops we would be done soon & they were cool. They were more worried about the open containers of alcohol.

What do you envision in the future for flashdances? Do you want to make them bigger and grander, or is their current scale just right?

I'm pretty happy with the size of them now, in fact I might need to get some bigger speakers that are still bikeable as it is, but I'm not sure it can really get much bigger and still be as fun. On the other hand I don't want to make them exclusive, so we'll see how this plays out. We have 575 people on the email list now & it is still growing. As for future directions, I don't know - we've only had 3 - the fourth is Saturday.