movements

Flash Mob Performs Haka in Queenstown

[action begins about 60 seconds in after the traffic lights change]

A 2002 article says Swarming is a classic example of how once-isolated individuals are discovering a new way to organise order out of chaos, without guidance. It reverses the idea that geography, in an Internet age, has become irrelevant - the whole point is to bring people together in one location for face-to-face contact.

More recently, this sort of activity is being described as a Flash Mob. Wikipedia says

A flash is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, artistic expression or—in some cases—violence. [The 2005 Cronulla riots were described by one criminologists as a form of swarming.]

International Pillow Fight Day took place on March 22, 2008. Over 25 cities around the globe participated in the first "international flash mob", which was the world's largest flash mob to date.

San Francisco Pillow Fight

The most common examples of Flash Mobs I could find on YouTube were dance, with the spontaneity – and the responses of surprised bystanders – making the whole business so appealing

Michael Jackson’s Beat It

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Some years ago we went to see Bette Midler’s extravaganza Kiss My Brass, and a few minutes into the second half her mic started to cut in and out. Eventually she stopped the show, telling the techs “these people have paid good Australian dollars to see this show, so let’s get it right”.

Everyone waited patiently for the problem to get sorted. And waited. Then we waited some more. we’d all paid a lot of money for a night of great fun, and just as one or two fools started complaining out loud, a hand full of people started a Mexican wave, which was a perfect way to keep the buzz happening while we waited.
[Eventually the show re-started and then ran smoothly.] 
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Melbourne’s city square was originally just a wide open space. Experts and planners kept haggling over what to do with it, but I was chuffed with it the way it was. In 1972 Gough Whitlam addressed a crowd that simply wouldn’t fit into the square today, and I must say the mood was rather positive.

But most days, something was happening, even if it was just people sitting in the sun to eat their lunch. One day some students pushed a piano all the way down from RMIT and started an impromptu singalong. We didn’t have video cameras to record the event, but everyone was beaming.

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Dance crazes are good because, with the exception of those handicapped by a total lack of rhythm, just about everyone can join in and “belong” with a mob of perfect strangers; think the Bus Stop, Nutbush, the Hustle or even just C & W line-dancing.

In my wild imagination, I see protests turning into Flash Mob Dance sessions. For a few years, John Farnham’s “You’re the Voice” played clearly during the Palm Sunday Peace Marches. No idiots ever came along to hijack the marches or turn them ugly.

In fact, forget the protests, let's just cut straight to the fun. Bollywood, anyone?