Unknowing students and visitors at the Ohio Union were bombarded May 3 by a mob of Ohio State students and staff members — a flash mob, that is.
Dancing to the tune of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” about 70 OSU students and staff members, including President E. Gordon Gee, Brutus Buckeye and Tracy Stuck, director of the Union, shocked the crowd with a surprise choreographed routine.
Last week’s ambush had been kept a secret since the idea came up in December, said dancer Matt Fenstermaker.
“We practiced one to two times a week and more as it got closer,” said Fenstermaker, a second-year in art education. “It all started with Jordan Davis.”
People might recognize Davis’ name, as she recently ran against president-elect Micah Kamrass in the Undergraduate Student Government elections.
“It was about December when I was in the director of the Union’s office with another student when I showed a video of a flash mob in Belgium,” said Davis, a fourth-year in political science and leadership studies. “I proposed the idea of coordinating an impromptu dance to occur in the Union, and immediately we started brainstorming on how to make the vision a reality.”
Coded e-mails and cryptic messages to a select few followed the initial decision to attempt the stunt, as Davis and others began recruiting for the event. Davis said many details were left out until the group convened in private.
“The group grew slowly over time. We added new people each practice,” Davis said. “We practiced in multipurpose rooms of the RPAC before we had the Union and even had a practice in the Great Hall before the building’s grand opening.
“After spring break, we began meeting two days a week on Thursday and Sunday evenings. We practiced secretly in different rooms of the Union and then our last rehearsal was held in the Great Hall from midnight to 2 a.m. the night before our performance,” Davis said.
Concealing the impending performance wasn’t easy for the mob members, said dancer Casey Cross.
“I would always look forward to Sunday and Thursday nights when we would have our practices,” said Cross, a third-year in actuarial science. “The only hard part about this was explaining to my friends that were not involved where I was continuously disappearing to on a regular basis. In the end, though, keeping it a secret definitely paid off.”
Cross also said one of the mob’s goals was to get 100,000 YouTube hits on the video of the dance. As of Monday, there were almost 1 million.
“It is an indescribable feeling that we all get when we hear people talking about the flash mob and when we see people commenting about and reposting the link,” Cross said.
Davis agrees that it has been an overwhelming feeling knowing how popular the video has become.
The term “flash mob” refers to a large group of people who collectively perform an act or routine in a public setting, then quickly disperse, with the intent to shock and surprise unknowing onlookers and passersby.
It was the brainchild of the senior editor of Harper’s Magazine, Bill Wasik, who in 2003 organized the first successful one at a Macy’s department store in New York City. The mob congregated around a single rug claiming to be searching for a “love rug.”
In an interview with Stay Free! magazine, Wasik said it gave people the “opportunity to confuse other people.”
Thousands of people had the opportunity to confuse Oprah Winfrey in September 2009. They joined in a dance flash mob with the Black Eyed Peas at her Michigan Avenue block party in Chicago celebrating the start of her talk show’s 24th season.
Flash mobs are not just confined to dancing. In fact, they are more commonly associated with odd behavior such as momentary freezing, as in the case at Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station on April 1. Hundreds came to stand in place for three minutes.
As for a future OSU flash mob, Davis is keeping her information vague.
“I can’t say if there will be another breakout performance in the future or not,” she said, “but I know there is a lot of excitement about planning another flash mob that is bigger and better.”
