Youth Flash Dance

So as you all should know, today was the first official day at COP15 and one thing that a few SES delegates participated in was a youth flash dance!

For those of you who are unaware of what a flash dance is...
A flash dance is simply a dance that happens when people are least expecting it with the dancers staged as confused audience members that then join in with the dance once it has started.

The youth flash dance happened like this...
A little after getting into the conference this morning we happened to meet up with the delegates from the Will Steger Foundation and one of their delegates, Reed, told us about a flash dance that was going to happen at one o'clock. I for one was really excited when I heard this because in the Climate Change Policy intensive theme this fall I was able to watch both Australia and the UK (through YouTube) participate in youth flash dances to raise awareness and gain attention to the youth movement. The plan was that one YOUNGO (youth non-governmental) delegate was going to stand up, throw off his jacket and break out into song and dance about how the climate is warming. So what happened was at one o'clock YOUNGO members (includes ANY youth delegate) and members of the international YMCA met outside of a meeting room, in a very open area where people were hanging out, eating lunch, drinking coffee, on the web, or just taking a break between meetings...so it was a very busy area. Among these people included many media members filming the dance and people taking pictures of everything.

Deon, Jessica, and I (Tara) went up to this crowd of youth and we waited for the leader to start the dance (as Katie filmed it all of course). The dance went like this...the youth leader started singing "Ohhh it's hot in here! There must be some carbon in the atmosphere!" And there was a dance skit involved that Deon, Jessica, and I tried to learn and reproduce as quickly as we could. After that we chanted back lines that he shouted first.

We did the whole thing twice and then we wanted to move into the meeting room we were next to, where negotiators were, so we could make a stand and show them how the youth delegates would not be quiet at COP15, but the security guarding the room did not let us in.

All in all it was a really cool experience to be a part of a flash dance at COP15 with youth from all over the world.