Live Action Adverts

Increasingly, the dance flash mob is casted, and professionally choreographed. Perhaps T-Mobile's series in 2007 did it best, literally cramming a train station full of dancers who rocked out so hard, their infectious enthusiasm spread to passersby who picked up snippets of the choreo and joined in. Lately, however, the drive to control the message of the flash mob has generated a fourth wall in semi-public, but mostly private consumerists spaces.

The latest effort of Beyoncé to take over the world through hairography and pumps comes not from her Goldeness Herself, rather from a "flash mob" created for Target to celebrate the launch of her album at the retail chain, or given the date, her team's nomination for an MTV Music Video Award for best Choreography. This video has very high production quality and most strikingly, has a storyline, just like a regular advertisement would. Give it a look:



As you can see, the crowd is forced out of their space, their routine for shopping, not because they want to watch necessarily, but because the producer realized that the best place to stage the mob was by the registers, which became the backstage for the waves of dance crews. Displacing the shopper does not turn them into an audience member. In fact, it could be argued that this particular iteration of flash mob is not the "gift" we have come to enjoy from large scale group choreography. Done in tiny teams each with exceptionally virtuositic timing (seriously, who would pick up these moves in a few moments other than another professional dancer), matching costumes meant to harmonize with the other brand in the room--Target--this flash mob for Beyoncé is foisted upon the shoppers. There is no negotiation of space, the music pumped overhead tells them they are in a different space, and the cameraman definitely cut down their ability to move across the aisle to the check out lines.

This is not a dance flash mob: it is an advertisement that disrupts the main show just like a regular one. The only difference? This ad does not pay dancers residuals, stalks the viewer, blocking the exits, and unfortunately, the bathroom.