Flash mob

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From 1982 each year on 29 April we celebrate the International Dance Day as the anniversary of Jean Georges Noverre who was the creator of modern ballet.

ballet_quoteThe idea of this day is to “bring people together with a common language – Dance”, so each year the Dance Committee chooses one of the outstanding choreographers or dancers who is responsible for preparing a worldwide message. It should be related to dance as a relay of body language which spreads the idea of crossing all barriers. This year the speaker will be Israel Galván (flamenco choreographer and dancer) who will speak about energy from the dance and its healing properties which is known as “choreotherapy” (dance therapy). He will attempt to spread the idea of dancing together. The best solution to achieve this goal is to participate in a flash mob.

Here you can read the dance message and find more information about the greatest Spanish choreographer and dancer.

Israel_Galván

Flash mobs bring people together in action

TermCoord decided to choose “flash mob” as the IATE term of the week due to the celebration of the International Dance Day and also to encourage translators to make a contribution to IATE and propose the equivalents in other languages of this neologism, which may be a  bit of a demanding task.

Contribute to IATE! A terminologist for the respective language will revise your answer and decide whether to validate them. Given the implications of the process, a delay is to be expected.

Flashmob IATE
According to dictionary, “flash mob is a group of people mobilized by social media to meet in a public place for the purpose of doing an unusual or entertaining activity of short duration. Related forms: flash mobber, flash mobster (noun)”.

The main idea of flash mobs is to gather people in one place at the same time and do something together to have fun. To achieve this result, people just start to send messages about upcoming events with instructions how to follow them. Real flash mobs are random actions which take place in a short amount of time, between 2 and 10 minutes. Unfortunately, this idea lies in ruins due to commercial companies which discovered the possibility of this powerful transfer of ideas with  the help of a flash mob dance. Today, these events are mostly gathering people not only to do something together, like dancing on the street, but foremost to cross some products and services by a random encounter with them. Nonetheless, some flash mobs are regarded as  great opportunities to get some ideas across to society, like messages of peace or anti-bullying in schools. Notice that before there were words and tweets, we had body language. Translating words into dance.

Check the International Zouk Flashmob 2013.

For instance, Avon organized a flash mob in celebration of Breast Cancer Awareness Month to support the idea of the screening and diagnosis of breast cancer. The flash mob happened in Reston Town Center and its length symbolizes the sad statistics: every three minutes in the U.S., there is a new diagnosis of breast cancer. So, even if the flash mob is appreciated by others for its spontaneity, originality and bringing people together in the same action, here you can see that this flash mob put an emphasis on an important issue, like encouraging women to detect the disease in its early stages. What is one of the main characteristics of flash mob? You will never know when and where you may become a witness or participant of such an event, even if the most popular places are still railway stations, city centers and shopping malls. Sometimes, they are also organised to pay tribute to great people around the world, like the “Prison” flash mob in tribute to Michael Jackson.

Watch the “Prison flash mob” here.

Indeed, you never know which dance style will be chosen, but the most popular ones are Latino and hip hop. Sometimes, you can also learn some national dances, like flamenco. It also be used for promoting dance schools as flash mobs are related to viral marketing, which means that after the whole event, you can find yourself engaged in dancing in one of the popular social media platforms, websites or even on YouTube. Remember that people are both interested in seeing how you dance and what your reaction for spontaneous dance performances is.

Flash-Mob-Dance-art
Here you can find a great collection of dance photos with quotations.

Ranking of the most viewed flash mob of all time.

Sources:

International Dance Day
Dictionary
Flash mob

Written by Aleksandra Święcicka. Journalist, web editor and social media expert. Communication Trainee at TermCoord