Tonight, people around the world will plug into their portable listening devices, simultaneously press play to a pre-set, universal playlist and dance together throughout various cities. The New Orleans edition of the Global Floating Dance Party will start in Lafayette Square at 10:00pm, make its way to Harrah’s Casino at 10:30pm, and end at the steps of the state Supreme Court on Royal Street in the French Quarter at 11:00pm.

The playlist will feature songs by local musicians of each participating city around the world: Buenos Aires, Argentina; Siem Reap, Cambodia; Bejing, China; Florence, Italy; Lema, Peru; Monteverde, Costa Rica; Copenhagen, Denmark; Paris, France; Tokyo, Japan; Accra, Ghana; Zomba, Malawi; Madrid, Spain; London, UK; and six cities in the U.S., including New Orleans.

Alyssa Hasbrouch organized the New Orleans arm of the global movement. She is a junior at Yale University where the Floating Dance Party began, and is in town for the summer.

The floating dance party is a new form to enjoy music that could only have been created in this iGeneration.

“It’s a celebration of where you are, what you’re listening to, and the technology we are utilizing,” Hasbrouch said. “In this day in age, MP3s are increasingly popular. Everybody has one of some kind. And they isolate us instead of uniting us.”

The traditional live music venue also lacks a characteristic unique to the floating dance party, Hasbrouch said. While people can listen to music together in a live performance, the listeners are “tethered to one stage,” she said. In a floating dance party, listeners tune into the same playlist as they dance from one location to the next.

Participants around the world are to download the pre-set playlists before arriving to the first location in each city. The playlist is broken down into three 30-minute segments, each to begin when the party has relocated to the next destination (i.e. New Orleans edition: Lafayette Square, Harrah’s Casino, Supreme Court). This method gives everyone three chances to synchronize the common playlist, as different portable listening devices have different playback delays.

“There will still be people not perfectly synchronized,” Hasbrouch said. “But it’s not a big deal. Everyone is just having so much fun and enjoying themselves, that it doesn’t make a difference.”

The floating dance party is made possible by social media, Hasbrouch said. Through Facebook and Twitter, a few individuals promoted the idea for The Global Floating Dance Party, from which anyone who is aware of it can participate.

The Global Floating Dance Party starts in Tokyo, Japan, due to different time zones. As others around the world wait to start their floating dance party, they will be able to follow Tokyo’s or any before theirs through photos, videos and tweets on GlobalFloat.com. The website was created yesterday by Yale alumni Alfredo Molinas and Tully McLoughlin, whom invented the party format.

Source: Nola Defender