Flash Mob Dance Craze Hits Malaysia

A flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual or pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse. The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via telecommunications, social media or viral email. It is generally not applied to events organized by public relations firms, protests and publicity stunts. The first flash mob was created in Manhattan, USA in May 2003 by Bill Wasik, senior editor of Harper's Magazine (source: Wikipedia). A flash mob dance is thus an event where a group of people gather in a public location to perform a pre-choreographed dance routine. The biggest flash mob dance ever held was at The Oprah Winfrey Show's 24th Season Kickoff Party in Chicago on September 10 2009. At this celebration, the crowd of more than 20,000 people performed a choreographed piece to I Gotta Feeling by Black Eyed Peas.

The first flash mob to be held in Malaysia was the "KL Freeze In Unison" on April 13 2009. This gathering attracted well over a thousand participants who had to remain 'frozen' or still for four minutes at Pavilion Kuala Lumpur. On August 14, a flash mob dance was held at Suria KLCC where the participants had a swell time dancing to songs by Pitbull, Michael Jackson, Vanilla Ice, The Beatles and various artistes. It was however the song Joget Berhibur by Siti Nurhaliza which had the crowd thrilled and raring to dance. More than 100 of them, including some 'aunties' took to the floor at the centre court of the shopping mall to dance the joget, a popular Malay traditional dance. Last month, Glee Flash Mobs (pic) dancing to the songs Bust A Move, Rehab and Don't Stop Believin' were seen at Mid Valley Megamall, Kuala Lumpur Sentral and Pavilion Kuala Lumpur to publicize the screening of the TV dance show, Glee.

Media group, Star Publications (M) Bhd is organizing a flash mob dance on June 22 at 1 Utama Shopping Centre in Petaling Jaya, Selangor in conjunction with The Star Online's 15th and In.Tech's 25th joint anniversary celebrations. The dance routine called Flash Mob Masala Dance, a Bollywood dance style performed to Pussycat Doll's Jai Ho will be conducted by fitness instructor Candi Soo. You can preview the routine at youtube.com/user/candisoofitness. For more information regarding this event, kindly contact Nerry at 03-23001574. Over in Sarawak, there will be an attempt to set a Malaysia flash mob dance record at the state-level youth assembly (Perhimpunan Belia 2010) which will be held at the Borneo Convention Centre in Kuching on July 24. The Ministry of Social Development and Urbanization Sarawak which is organizing this festival is hoping to attract more than 5000 youths to take part in this event.