National Ballroom Dance Week is September 20-29, 2019. If you’re following Dance Safari you’re either a dancer now or thinking about becoming a dancer. Why don’t we celebrate ballroom dancing with a Salsa Dance flash mob? It could start small with one or two couples dancing. Soon, other dancers join as it snowballs into a huge group of partner-switching Salsa dancers. When they’re finished, they rather casually wander off as if nothing happened.

“What’s a Salsa dance flash mob? That doesn’t sound like its legal!”

A flash mob is a group of seemingly unrelated people who meet in a predetermined location for a pop-up performance. The Wikipedia definition says, ” A flash mob (or flashmob) is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression.”

If you start now you’ll have 2 months to get it together.

Here are some steps to take.

• Choose a location. To avoid problems, make sure you have any permits required for a group to gather.
• You’ll have to recruit some willing participants.
• Not everyone will know how to dance the Salsa so they’ll have to start learning right away.
• Choreography isn’t needed because the couples can easily entertain with lead and follow.

To give you an idea of how this might work, here’s a video of a Swing dance flash mob. These flash ‘mobsters’ Swing dance for about 3 minutes after which they gathered together to perform a line dance.

Location

You’ll need an unsuspecting audience. For this reason, pick a place where you know lots of people pass through. For example, the mall, a public park, or a train station.

Participants

For this to work, the whole thing has to be done on the down-low. After all, if everyone knows when and where it’s gonna happen, the surprise will be blown. Therefore, avoid social media. First, invite your most trustworthy friends. Then, ask them to invite their friends. That should do it.

Learn to dance the Salsa.

Not everybody knows how to Salsa dance, but they’ll all want to learn. For total beginners, I like this free video from Baila Productions Salsa Dance School. More experienced dancers will enjoy the blog from SalsaSelfie.com. There you’ll find lots of written explanations and videos to help you spice up your Salsa dancing.

If you find yourself having trouble with the timing and rhythm of the Salsa, try this Dance Safari post, “Rhythmically Challenged? It’s All in Your Head“.

No choreography is necessary.

Many flash mobs have choreographed routines, but because this is ballroom dancing you’ll impress using good, old-fashioned partnership skills.

A small, but mightly Salsa dance flash mob will put a smile on your audience’s face and possibly make their day. It will require cooperation and coordination, but it’ll be an experience you’ll never forget.