Meet Bob’s Dance Shop, ‘World-Class Vibe Curators’
If you lived through the early 2000s, the phrase “flash mob” might arouse a vague feeling of dread. The seemingly spontaneous gatherings, often involving some kind of performance, began as a cool-kid phenomenon and devolved with disheartening speed into a corporate marketing tool. By the end of the decade there was a creeping sense, when witnessing a mob or a video of a mob, that something was being sold to you.
Then, several years and several vibe shifts later, came flash Bobs.
Like their older cousins, flash Bobs involve fake-impromptu gatherings in public spaces. But as orchestrated by Bob’s Dance Shop — a group of five performers that its founder Vince Coconato describes as an “immersive dance crew” — the mobs lean silly, colorful and joyfully queer. Featuring routines with disarmingly simple choreography set to wedding-playlist classics, and performed by diverse throngs of mostly untrained dancers, they bring the inclusive spirit of the viral dance challenge out into the fresh air. (And then, in the group’s shared video footage of each event, back online.)
Those strolling the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica a few Saturdays ago might have wandered into the most recent flash Bob. Eighty colorfully attired mobbers took to the cobblestones, performing a disco-inflected number to a remix of “Le Freak” by Chic. The climax was the reveal of the pop star Paula Abdul, who dance-mingled with the crowd and then hugged everyone within reach.
Source: The New York Times
