Friday, September 25, 2009

Who Is Responsible for the Sound of Music Train Station Video?

I think the choreographed dance routine to the song “Do Re Mi”, which takes place at the Centraal Station in Antwerp, Belgium, is about the greatest thing since sliced bread. I love watching it and I never seem to get tired of it. I’ve already watched it at least a dozen times. It’s playing on my desktop right now, in fact!

But after about the twelfth time, I became intensely curious. Who is responsible for this really creative and original fete?

There are so many things I like about this video. First of all, there’s the wardrobe, or lack of one. All the dancers are wearing their own clothes, ranging from business suits to jeans, hoodies and sneakers. They truly look like 200 people who simply came to take a train and got caught up in the excitement and fun of it all, and oh by the way, they all just happened to know the steps! At one point, you see this fifties-ish guy with grey hair and a tan coat smiling and watching like he thinks it's really cool, and a few minutes later he's smack dab in the middle! And then there's this twenties-ish really tall guy in a dark suit who looks like he could be anybody's accountant in the very last row on the end and he's completely into it!

And I especially like the looks on their faces when the music starts. They’re all looking around like, “Where is this music coming from?” like they have no idea and are really surprised. They pull that off really well.

So I did some Googling and here’s what I found. According to Surfstation.com, the promotional stunt was put on by a Belgian television program, which was looking for someone to play the lead in a remake of “The Sound of Music”. The Huffington Post says it is a promotional stunt for a reality show.

Either way, HuffPo offers a great explanation for why I, and roughly a million other people, enjoy this video so much: “We’re in a global economic crisis, America’s fighting two wars, there’s genocide in Darfur, AIDs running rampant, and a pretty good shot that we could all be killed by bird flu in a year or two. We need this video.” Well that certainly explains a lot.

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