I finally got to head into the city for one of Improv Everywhere’s scenes. I took place in the third MP3 Experiment, The search for Steve.
I arrived on location about a half hour early. There were maybe 10 to 20 people or so sitting around, just relaxing on the lawn. As the time got closer to 3:00, people started to flow in, a few at a time. 30…50…100.. soon there were easily between 150 and 200 people at my location, and keep in mind, there were 4 starting points for the experiment.
3:00 rolled around and we were given a countdown to start our iPods, iRivers, Creative Zens, CD Players, or in my case, my Dell AXIM PDA. The CD was filled throughout the event with upbeat music and the narrations of our leader, Snowflake. No, not a homosexuality reference, or even just a bad nickname. Snowflake was just that, a 7 foot tall (same in width) white snowflake. He was our leader in finding “Steve”, the omnipient being who would come down to earth if we all willed it!
So we followed along with steve, playing a game of Snowflake Says (i.e. Simon Says). Picture it… 200 people, playing Simon Says in the park, with others looking on, only they can’t hear the direction of “Snowflake”. Must have looked odd to everyone else, but not as odd as what will happen next.
The search for Steve is off as we are instructed to line up, single file in a line with the shortest people at the front and the tallest in the back… Not the easiest task, but we managed fairly well, as we followed Snowflake through the trails in Central Park. The looks on people’s faces as a parade of 200 people paraded through the areas where they were lounging, picnicing, playing ball, frizbee, etc… Single file, people getting taller and taller… Some people even ran up to us asking what was going on.
The parade ended with all 4 groups meeting up in a central location by the waterside. There had to be close to, if not more than 1000 people all together. All with MP3 players and CD Players… We were instructed to dance various dances that we discussed earlier on… Picture 1000 people dancing in the middle of Central Park, with no music (that you can hear). That is exactly what a good number of onlookers saw…
Simultaneously, we all called out “STEVE!!!!” and from the waterside was a person with a long beard, smoke bellowing from his sleeves. To us he was presented as Steve, but nobody outside of our group could possibly have ANY clue what was going on. Or what was to come…
Just as we had Snowflake, other groups had Rain Drop, Clouds, and Sun Shine. We all formed a HUGE circle as the leaders fought in mortal kombat to find which season would reign as the winner. We were instructed to cheer for our leader as they all fought, hitting, kicking, and bumping into eachother. “Go Snowflake!! Go Sun!!! Go Raindrop!!! Go Cloud!!” was all an onlooker would have heard as the four seasons personified went at it with eachother.
Unfortunately, We didn’t win.. Sunshine won, but we tried, so to cellebrate, we all formed a konga-line (what could ver well have been a quarter-of-a-mile konga-line, maybe longer.) After walking for at least 3 minutes, I looked back and saw the line going on and on, and at the very end (beginning) was a crowd that still hadn’t even joined onto the line.
It was incredibly wacky and a whole lot of fun. Everybody there had a blast and got along great! Want to read more, see pics, watch videos, and even join in next time, check out the Improv Everywhere web site.