Dancing around the world

2008-06-27T04:22:00Z

In 2006 a small little video clip took the internet world by storm. It featured a lone man doing a small little dance in various locations around the globe. The dance wasn't anything spectacular, but the concept, idea and ultimate scale of the video is what made it such an amazing thing to watch.

Originally titled "Dancing 2006", it eventually became known as "Where the Hell is Matt" and featured "dancing Matt", who the internet community would later come to know as Matt Harding.

Matthew is an American videogame developer originally from Westport, Connecticut, who spent time living and working in Santa Monica, California, and Brisbane, Australia.

It was during a holiday to Vietnam, the the idea for what would eventually become "Where the Hell is Matt" originally started. While videotaping each other during the trip, his travel companion suggested that Matt do a little dance to make the video footage more amusing. This original clip soon turned into fifteen and the clips were passed around via email, and became so popular that in 2006, Matt added more scenes and created the complete video which I'm sure most of you have seen or have at least heard of.

The video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNF_P281Uu4

As the video became popular, at the request of Stride Gum, Matthew accepted sponsorship of the clips. Because he usually travelled on a self-funded, limited budget, this new sponsorship made a sequel to the original footage almost inevitable.

In 2007, Matt set off on another around-the-world journey to begin creating the newest "Where the Hell is Matt" video.

This time, he approached the idea differently. The old video featured him dancing by himself, and he decided that the new one should be more about uniting the world with dance, and should feature other dancers. So the call went out, worldwide, for locals at every location to come and dance and be a part of it.

After 14 months of travelling, visiting 42 different countries and dancing with hundreds of people, the newest video was released on June 20th, 2008.

I was among those who heeded the call and turned up to dance in the clips, and can very briefly be seen bouncing up and down in the Brisbane footage.

As simple an idea as it is, there's something quite moving about watching the videos in their entirety. Matt Harding manages to make the world seem like a very small place, where anything is possible.

Where the Hell is Matt, 2008 can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY

Posted on behalf of Matthew Van Zyderveld