I was standing in the crowd at a Spoon concert this past summer when suddenly I got the feeling that something was wrong. I looked at the people around me. Everyone seemed fine. There were no fights, no panic attacks, no sudden kidney explosions. They were all just standing there. I suddenly realized; that was exactly the point.
Arms crossed or hanging limply at the sides, both feet planted firmly on the floor. None of them were dancing. I looked at my own motionless feet and realized with horror that I was doing it, too.
Mortified that the band may have noticed that I wasn't physically demonstrating my appreciation for their music, I sprang into action immediately, arms flailing, feet beating out a time signature that didn't exist. Within moments, I increased my own enjoyment of the music by at least a factor of three and managed to draw a number of looks from people that in that light could have very easily been envy.
However, a new doubt struck me. Was my dancing making a difference? If I was the only one doing it here, did that mean there were others like me in different parts of the country also fighting seemingly hopeless battles against standing still, and if so, what could I do to help them?
So in the interest of inspiring concert dancers and non-dancers alike into glorious, arhythmic motion, I'd like to share the story of a man who inspired me.
The man in question happened to be standing in front of me at a concert in mid June, where despite the unusually fast tempo and hazardous volume of the music, upward of 75 percent of the audience was not dancing. The hero of our story may have noticed it too as he apparently made it his goal to single-handedly make up for the lethargy of the rest of the crowd by launching into a dance routine that was simultaneously the most frightening and impressive thing I've ever seen, next to an octopus killing a shark.
He (the dancing guy, not the octopus) began by screaming at the band like he intended them physical harm, then started running frantically in place while flopping over completely at the waist like a dead minaret and punching the floor like it was Fred Durst.
He then straightened his back and proceeded to punch out to the side with his left arm while making a gesture with his right arm like he was gaining great sexual satisfaction by rapidly accessing an ATM machine.
Next, he began jerking his thumbs back over his shoulders in the style of Elaine Benes, forcing me to duck to avoid losing my eyesight to a pair of giant thumbnails.
Finally, he started spastically twisting his torso to the left until he eventually succeeded (I imagine) in throwing his shoulder out of the socket while rapidly performing the \Sign of the Cross"" in reverse with his right arm. The routine was then repeated in a completely different order and-if possible-with an even greater lack of self-consciousness.
The moral of the story: Our hero didn't allow good taste, the safety of others or his central nervous system to get in the way of his having, what I am convinced, was a better time than anyone else at this concert. And so my advice to you dear reader, is, to quote the Violent Femmes, ""Dance, Motherfucker, Dance!""
You can join Matt's dancing revolution by e-mailing him at hunziker@wisc.edu.
