Picture this. It’s a crisp Saturday morning in Manhattan. Suzanne and I had just taken the train in and are on our way to a dance rehearsal space on 8th Avenue. The elevator takes us up to a colorful lobby with a sign that says “Quiet Please. Creativity at work.” All around us are young actors, singers, dancers, musicians preparing for their auditions for some of Broadway’s top shows. We find our way into Studio E with 80 or so other hopefuls waiting for our chance to show the Great White Way what we can do! Well, not exactly. We were actually there with Flash Mob America to rehearse the dance we would be doing for an unsuspecting woman, who if all things went as planned, was about to become engaged.
We spent three hours learning (more or less) the rather complicated dance moves to “Can’t take My Eyes Off of You” by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. You know when you like a song and then you hear it 20 times over and over again and you want to rip your own brain out of your head to make it stop? Yeah. That’s me now. Anyway, the group of amateur dancers was very diverse – young families with children, millennials, middle aged men and women – all with varying degrees of dance skills. I’ve always liked to dance, but for some reason, give me steps to follow and suddenly my hips and torso become fused. The dance wasn’t easy and my otherwise keen sense of rhythm had taken a holiday, but I wasn’t letting that stop me.
The choreographer staged the performance, deciding who would join the dance and when. First she and a “friend”, then two more people, then four more, 6 more and on and on until everyone was dancing. This may come as a surprise, but Suzanne and I were relegated to come in during the “everyone else” portion of the dance. Fine by us. That was the only portion of the dance we “sort” of knew anyway.
We all headed individually to Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. I’d seen it in media forever but had never been there personally. What a beautiful spot! The fountain (dry this time of year) surrounded by the park and the lake was lovely and the perfect spot for a marriage proposal surrounded by 80 dancing strangers.
We were left to mill about like your average tourists as the couple entered the park. The choreographer asked the gentleman to snap a photo of her and her friend. He did, gave her back her phone and as she pretended to look at the photo, she hit PLAY. The music started and the two of them struck their first move. In came the rest of the group bit by bit as the bewilderment, excitement and joy grew. 
Park goers stopped in their tracks as people started filtering into the fray, creating a large…well…mob of dancers. The couple stood there watching and smiling and when he was brought into the dance toward the end, her surprise was palpable. At the end of the song, he approached her, got down on one knee and presented the ring. They hugged, they kissed and thankfully she said YES!
I’m a romantic at heart and It was so amazing to be part of a couple’s very memorable proposal and start of their life together.
June came into the city to watch the flash mob, so the three of us celebrated our performance with outdoor drinks at the lakeside Central Park Boathouse and finished up at The Ribbon on the upper west side where Rob, Suzanne’s husband, met us for dinner. An absolutely wonderful day from start to finish!
And oh – I would totally do a flash mob again, so if you’d like to join me, sign up with Flash Mob America and they’ll send you an email when they’re in New York. Just think – you too could be an indelible part of someone’s lifelong memory.
Suggested by Me
Completed 12/2/17