MVC Dance Party?

Sitting in the plastic bucket seat at the MVC (the hell-hole previously known as the DMV), something odd struck me. In the middle of a over-landscaped office park, surrounded by men in suits and old folks from the suburbs, hearing the lazy call from the public address system for number 54, I realized that this would be a great place for a dance party.

But not just any dance party. A strange, unexpected event of a dance party. What I'm imagining is this. A man, myself, dressed non descriptly, walks in to the agency. He is carrying, predictably, a boombox. He waits for a few minutes for his number to be called, and then presses play on the machine. There, in the middle on of the sacred halls of banality that dot modern existence, where no fun is ever allowed under any circumstances, he will beginning dancing. Horribly, joyously. And he will try to dance with everyone else. And if it goes well, everyone will have a fairly decent time getting their boating license renewed, and a good story to tell.

My favorite part about this performance art/social experiment is its ability to point out that there is no reason for certain places to be what I'm going to call "dead zones." In this world, we have places where nothing good can happen, where tacit rules prohibit enjoyment: banks, offices, government agencies, hotel lobbies, subways. These faceless places exist everywhere, and no one wants to go to them. Yet, we fulfil our tasks to be good citizens of this society by refusing to do anything to make it more enjoyable. Essentially, we choose to live in the dead zones when we need to. The sad thing is we don't have to do this, and no one seems to realize it.

It's the same principle as a flash mob - a group of people appear out of nowhere to create a momentary event, like a silly string fight on an escalator, and then disappear into the crowd. It's beautiful, spontaneous fun that everyone likes but few people are willing to participate in. But why stand around and let the fun parts of life walk by when you can actually participate in them, temorarily changing the mostly unspoken rules and regulations that govern our lives? Why live a hollow life?

So if you see a man with a stereo sit down in the MVC, get ready to boogie.