Shadow Dancing

Dancing around your bedroom half naked to that song you love is the most fun you've ever had. Don't deny it. Hell, when you really want to you can do the MJ crotch grab–pelvic thrust all the way from the kitchen to your bedroom. But there's a problem with your inner groove child – it doesn't want to come out around people. Even when it does you have no recollection of it because you weren't really all there. What could coax it out? The answer is so simple you may just kick yourself for not realising you do it all the time anyway. What's going to get it out is pretty much just you thinking you are in your bedroom half naked dancing to that song you love, but wearing clothes and in a room with the lights off. Dance lovers Alice Glenn and Heidi Barrett figured that out about four years ago and so was born the all-rhythm, all-darkness gathering No Lights No Lycra (NLNL).

“After studying contemporary dance for a few years we had kind of forgotten what made us want to move to music in the first place,” says Barrett of the days pre-NLNL. “We had studied it to death and in some ways we didn't find it fun any more. We wanted to dance like we did when we were kids again.”

The premise is simple: leave your stale two-step at the door and move how the music makes you feel. There is no fear of being judged here, because no one gives a damn, and also because the lights are off. Arms flail, robots come to life, shimmies shimmy. Everyone has a good time, everyone sweats a little and then everyone goes home, some having learnt that their bodies can move in ways they didn't even know.

Walking into NLNL for the first time is a little like the first day of primary school, but with less peeing your pants and this time you think you might have a shot at being a cool kid. Then Biggie Smalls starts rapping about some “bitches in the back looking righteous in a tight dress” and the memory of being a ginger kid gripping your mums leg evaporates and in its place you become a 150 kilo rapper from Brooklyn, having a sick one with his homies (still not the cool kid, though). A room of silhouettes jumps from here to there, there's a bump or two and everyone starts finding their feet. The shoes eventually come off, sweat permeates the air before the smell of it becomes lost, and then the hour is over and you desperately want it back.

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The organisers of each event choose the music, but anyone is invited to submit a mix-tape for rotation. One moment, the '80s is in full effect, getting physical and what have you; the next, Darude's Sandstorm is putting some arms and legs to serious work. A real sense of community has built up around these gatherings and more than a few dance/sweat-offs have been had between regular patrons. After a while, you can start picking out who is who amongst the shadows and people aren't people any more – they become their moves.

Since its humble beginnings NLNL has taken on cult status around the world, with different locations popping up on the regular. It can be found from here to China, up to Ireland and back again, creating what is truly an international dance community.

Going global was an accident, says Barrett: “It started with a friend of ours who was visiting from New York. She loved the idea and asked if she could start one of her own. From there it has just bubbled out and we are now in 33 locations around the world.”

The nonchalance in which she says this is a little surprising. Making something like NLNL that has taken off the world over is rare. But after a little more consideration it makes sense. People have always been dancing in the dark, it's just that sometimes we get a little too caught up in the light and forget to flip the switch off. That, and no one likes lycra.

DANCING THIS WEEK

MELBOURNE

Monday

1000 Pound Bend, 361 Little Lonsdale St, CBD, 6.30pm

Tuesday

250 George St, Fitzroy, 7.30pm

Wednesday

49 Nicholson St, Brunswick East, 7pm

SYDNEY

First Wednesday of every month

Boxcar, 12 Dawson St, Surrey Hills, 8pm

BRISBANE