viz.

Let's get this semester started with some happy, shall we?  This is a 2009 video of a flash mob in Antwerp performing a choreographed dance to "Do-Re-Mi" from The Sound of Music.  This stunt was apparently orchestrated to promote a Belgian television show.  Though common sense tells you that this performance was meticulously organized and rehearsed, it's hard to deny the arrestingly joyous quality of the video.  As with most well-done flash mob videos, both the filming techniques and the performance itself promote the illusion that this was a spontaneous event.  The camera pans to individuals who appear to be regular by-standers, individuals who later join in the performance just for the sheer fun of it.  It's initially unclear whether the crowd of dancers rushing down the stairs is part of the performance or simply spectators trying to get a look at what's going on. 

The rhetorical brilliance of this performance is that it really invites us to take part in the alternate reality evoked by musicals, a reality in which people spontaneously break out into perfectly choreographed song and dance numbers at the slightest provocation.  The ethos of the flash mob, like the ethos of the musical, is in carefully walking that line between joyous spontaneity and contrivance in order to encourage the audience to suspend disbelief and go along for the ride. 

Indeed, flash mobs, which can be deployed as performance art, political protest, or publicity stunt embody that line as examples of populist art that frequently get appropriated by corporate and media entities.  A flash mob was organized for Oprah's Kickoff Party in 2009, an act that garnered a tremendous amount of free publicity for Harpo:

So, does it ruin it for you to know that these acts are so heavily orchestrated?  Is the use of flash mobs as marketing tools obnoxious or refreshing in a media culture so saturated with hard, shiny artifice? 

Finally, would anyone be brave enough to organize a flash mob as a class project?  Anyone?  Bueller?