Trendsurfing: Mobile clubbing (The Times)
By David Rowan
It is 6.38pm at Liverpool Street Station, and the evening commute is suddenly interrupted by a burst of spontaneous dancing. The first gyrations below the concourse clock provoke uneasy stares, but soon 40 or 50 strangers are swaying unselfconsciously along to their own headphone soundtracks.Passers-by are grinning, nodding along, even occasionally joining in with their iPods. "The first time I was really nervous," explains Emma Davis, 27, keeping time on her Walkman tonight to Michael Jackson's Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough. "But the adrenaline gets going once you see someone else dancing out of the corner of your eye. Now I can dance anywhere."
This is "mobile clubbing", the latest socially networked urban phenomenon. It began last September when Davis and a fellow artist, Ben Cummins, invited a few friends by text and e-mail to turn up at Liverpool Street and start dancing at a prearranged time. Since then, the gatherings have spread to Victoria Station, Waterloo, Charing Cross, even Berlin, Hong Kong and Tel Aviv. "It's got to the stage now where 80 people will dance for a couple of hours, and we might not recognise any of them," Davis says. "It's mostly students and people in their twenties, but we've had kids, families, suits coming home from the office. Everyone likes to dance - so what better than to do it in a train station?"
The rules (explained on the www.mobile-clubbing.com website) are simple: arrive at the given time, start dancing to your personal stereo, and "utilise the space". This is not, Davis stresses, a spin-off of "flashmobbing", the pre-scripted internet-enabled gatherings which briefly excited media interest last summer. Still, she and Cummins were behind a "spontaneous" pillow fight outside St Paul's Cathedral this month, which attracted around 300 participants. "That was just a one-off, fun thing to do," Davis says. "It was timed for 5.40pm, just as people were leaving work. It was quite lovely."
The dancing events, however, continue to expand. Mobile clubbing has just branched out to Bristol and is about to reach Brighton; and any Times readers passing through Waterloo Station next Wednesday [OCT 27] are invited to strut their stuff by the departure gates at exactly 6.47pm. "Head-nodders and toe-tappers are as welcome as Fred Astaires," Davis says. "Choose any type of music, any form of dancing - and of course this club has no dress code."
The delicate question is what this all means. Some mobile clubbers claim to be reclaiming a public space from ever-encroaching commerce; others welcome the transient social context it offers our atomised urban lives. Emma Davis has a far simpler explanation. "People always expect us to make some grand political statement, but it's just about promoting fun," she says. "You struggle all day to make money, and then have to cope with commuting. This makes you feel good on the way home." "Some people go to gyms to keep fit, others go to stations and dance," adds Ben Cummins, 30. "Our most regular clubbers just like dancing. And unlike a real club, it's not even smoky."
So far these events have passed peacefully, with only occasional interruptions from bemused station security staff. "We've even had two police officers have a little boogie," says Cummins. The real threat seems to be from marketers keen to use the gatherings to promote everything from energy drinks to MP3 players. "It's just so wrong," Davis says firmly. "This is a public service. Why should anyone make money out of other people's dance moves?"
(The Times, London, October 25 2004)
It is 6.38pm at Liverpool Street Station, and the evening commute is suddenly interrupted by a burst of spontaneous dancing. The first gyrations below the concourse clock provoke uneasy stares, but soon 40 or 50 strangers are swaying unselfconsciously along to their own headphone soundtracks.Passers-by are grinning, nodding along, even occasionally joining in with their iPods. "The first time I was really nervous," explains Emma Davis, 27, keeping time on her Walkman tonight to Michael Jackson's Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough. "But the adrenaline gets going once you see someone else dancing out of the corner of your eye. Now I can dance anywhere."
This is "mobile clubbing", the latest socially networked urban phenomenon. It began last September when Davis and a fellow artist, Ben Cummins, invited a few friends by text and e-mail to turn up at Liverpool Street and start dancing at a prearranged time. Since then, the gatherings have spread to Victoria Station, Waterloo, Charing Cross, even Berlin, Hong Kong and Tel Aviv. "It's got to the stage now where 80 people will dance for a couple of hours, and we might not recognise any of them," Davis says. "It's mostly students and people in their twenties, but we've had kids, families, suits coming home from the office. Everyone likes to dance - so what better than to do it in a train station?"
The rules (explained on the www.mobile-clubbing.com website) are simple: arrive at the given time, start dancing to your personal stereo, and "utilise the space". This is not, Davis stresses, a spin-off of "flashmobbing", the pre-scripted internet-enabled gatherings which briefly excited media interest last summer. Still, she and Cummins were behind a "spontaneous" pillow fight outside St Paul's Cathedral this month, which attracted around 300 participants. "That was just a one-off, fun thing to do," Davis says. "It was timed for 5.40pm, just as people were leaving work. It was quite lovely."
The dancing events, however, continue to expand. Mobile clubbing has just branched out to Bristol and is about to reach Brighton; and any Times readers passing through Waterloo Station next Wednesday [OCT 27] are invited to strut their stuff by the departure gates at exactly 6.47pm. "Head-nodders and toe-tappers are as welcome as Fred Astaires," Davis says. "Choose any type of music, any form of dancing - and of course this club has no dress code."
The delicate question is what this all means. Some mobile clubbers claim to be reclaiming a public space from ever-encroaching commerce; others welcome the transient social context it offers our atomised urban lives. Emma Davis has a far simpler explanation. "People always expect us to make some grand political statement, but it's just about promoting fun," she says. "You struggle all day to make money, and then have to cope with commuting. This makes you feel good on the way home." "Some people go to gyms to keep fit, others go to stations and dance," adds Ben Cummins, 30. "Our most regular clubbers just like dancing. And unlike a real club, it's not even smoky."
So far these events have passed peacefully, with only occasional interruptions from bemused station security staff. "We've even had two police officers have a little boogie," says Cummins. The real threat seems to be from marketers keen to use the gatherings to promote everything from energy drinks to MP3 players. "It's just so wrong," Davis says firmly. "This is a public service. Why should anyone make money out of other people's dance moves?"
(The Times, London, October 25 2004)
posted by David Rowan at Monday, October 25, 2004
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