Dec. 10, 2012
April Wefler
[email protected]
The rules are simple. You don’t talk about your job. You don’t focus on your to-do list. You just dance.
The Galleries of Contemporary Art, GOCA, will host international dance movement Lunch Beat on Dec. 12 from noon to 1 p.m. in GOCA 121. The event will feature DJ Wesley Wayne, and free sandwiches will be provided.
“Lunch Beat is an international phenomenon,” said Daisy McConnell, director of GOCA. The program was founded in 2010 by Molly Ränge in Stockholm.
According to Forbes, Ränge was inspired by “Fight Club” and “hoped a high-club energy experience would make people feel energized in the afternoon, instead of soporific after lunch.”
Forbes notes, “Participants old and young and in smart and casual attire have offered Ränge a disarming hug and thanked her for the experience, before heading back to work with a spring in their step.”
Lunch Beat has received international press coverage. McConnell first heard about the event on NPR.
“The basic idea is to get people out of their office and do something really invigorating in the middle of the day,” McConnell said. She added that the event is not for networking.
This is the first Lunch Beat in Colorado. The dance sessions have been hosted throughout Europe, including in Amsterdam, Vienna, Hamburg and Manchester, England.
“I think it’s good for everybody to take a break, to get downtown,” McConnell said. “Downtown is a pretty great place to be; it takes away the traditional experience of the club or atmosphere.”
There are 10 rules of Lunch Beat:
1. If it’s your first lunch at Lunch Beat, you have to dance.
2. If it’s your second, third or fourth time at Lunch Beat, you have to dance.
3. If you are getting too tired to actually dance at Lunch Beat, please have your lunch at some other place.
4. You don’t talk about your job at Lunch Beat.
5. At Lunch Beat, everyone present is your dance partner.
6. Any Lunch Beat is to be no longer than 60 minutes and set during lunch time.
7. Lunch Beat events always serve their guests with a one DJ-set and one take-away meal.
8. Free water is always served during a Lunch Beat.
9. Lunch Beat is a drug-free environment.
10. Lunch Beat can be set up anywhere by anyone as long as they are announced as public events, are non-profit arrangements and are directed by this manifesto.
Although Lunch Beat is free, GOCA is asking for a suggested donation of $5 to cover the cost of the DJ and sandwiches.
In addition to the food and dancing, Lunch Beat will also have an art exhibit from Jay Shinn. “Light projections over paint – very appropriate place for dancing,” McConnell said.
She mentioned that Lunch Beat will continue to travel throughout the city and that the next one will be at Colorado College.
“We’re hoping to host it about once a year,” she said. “I think it really builds the community in a unique way, and that’s a really big part of what we do as the gallery.”