UDance rallied support with a "Gangnam Style" flash mob on The Green.

Behind the scenes: UDance flash mob

UDance rallies support with 'Gangnam Style' flash mob on The Green

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8:51 a.m., Nov. 13, 2012--On a Friday afternoon in October, University of Delaware senior Joseph Zarraga walked out onto the middle of The Green. With Halloween a few days away, Zarraga was dressed similarly to Korean pop star Psy, but for a different reason. 

At 12:10 p.m., Psy’s popular Gangnam Style started playing through speakers set up on the steps of Memorial Hall. Dozens of dancers, who had just seemed to be part of the gathering crowd of onlookers, ran out to join Zarraga. They were members of UDance, and this was a flash mob. 

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As the song went on, more and more dancers joined in, and more and more students and staff stopped to watch the surprise performance. 

When the show ended, campus was buzzing about the flash mob, and pictures and videos soon appeared on social networks, including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube

A video of the performance posted to UD’s Facebook page quickly became one of the University’s most successful social media posts in recent memory, generating more than 2,000 “likes,” 138 comments and close to 2,000 shares. On the University’s YouTube channel, the video has been seen close to 8,000 times. 

Zarraga, an Honors Program student and the UDance registered student organization chair, says all of the attention on social media has helped UDance raise awareness of its involvement with the B+ Foundation, which aims to help kids fighting cancer. 

“One of the biggest things for us as UDance is that people know about our organization. It’s usually pretty serious because we’re raising money for childhood cancer,” said Megan Rudolphi, co-executive coordinator of UDance. “The flash mob showed that we have a fun side and it will hopefully get people to join.”

After almost a month of recruiting and rehearsing for the flash mob, UDance was ready to Gangnam Style on The Green on Oct. 26. According to Zarraga, all the hard work paid off. “When people started tagging me in the video on the University Facebook [page] and I saw the amount of likes … That was the biggest indicator,” he said. 

Organizer Melissa Lee agrees, and said, “It was great to see so many students from the University come together to support such a great cause. I hope that we’ll be able to do something like this again in the future.” 

To learn more about UDance and their efforts with the B+ Foundation, click here.

Article by Jamie Lawlor and Ryan Maguire

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