63. DANCING IN THE STREET

<h2>63 .DANCING IN THE STREETS</h2>

<h6>. . . several patterns have laid the groundwork for evening activity in public - <a href="http://www.patternlanguage.com/apl/apl10/apl10.htm">MAGIC OF THE CITY (10)</a>, <a href="http://www.patternlanguage.com/apl/apl31/apl31.htm">PROMENADE (31)</a>, <a href="http://www.patternlanguage.com/apl/apl33/apl33.htm">NIGHT LIFE (33)</a>, <a href="http://www.patternlanguage.com/apl/apl58/apl58.htm">CARNIVAL (58)</a>, <a href="http://www.patternlanguage.com/apl/apl61/apl61.htm">SMALL PUBLIC SQUARES (61)</a>. To make these places alive at night, there is nothing like music and dancing; this pattern simply states the physical conditions which will encourage dancing and music to fill the streets.</h6>

<h3>Why is it that people don't dance in the streets today?</h3>

<h3>Therefore:</h3>

<h3>Along promenades, in squares and evening centers, make a slightly raised platform to form a bandstand, where street musicians and local bands can play. Cover it, and perhaps build in at ground level tiny stalls for refreshment. Surround the bandstand with paved surface for dancing -- no admission charge.</h3>

<p>All over the earth, people once danced in the streets; in theater, song, and natural speech, "dancing in the street" is an image of supreme joy. Many cultures still have some version of this activity. There are the Balinese dancers who fall into a trance whirling around in the street; the mariachi bands in Mexico - every town has several squares where the bands play and the neighborhood comes out to dance; there is the European and American tradition of bandstands and jubilees in the park; there is the bon odori festival in Japan, when everybody claps and dances in the streets.</p>

<p>But in those parts of the world that have become "modern" and technically sophisticated, this experience has died. Communities are fragmented; people are uncomfortable in the streets, afraid with one another; not many people play the right kind of music; people are embarrassed.</p>

<p>Certainly there is no way in which a change in the environment, as simple as the one which we propose, can remedy these circumstances. But we detect a change in mood. The embarrassment and the alienation are recent developments, blocking a more basic need. And as we get in touch with these needs, things start to happen. People remember how to dance; everyone takes up an instrument; many hundreds form little bands. At this writing, in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland there is a controversy over "street musicians" - bands that have spontaneously begun playing in streets and plazas whenever the weather is good - where should they be allowed to play, do they obstruct traffic, shall people dance?</p>

<p>It is in this atmosphere that we propose the pattern. Where there is feeling for the importance of the activity re-emerging, then the right setting can actualize it and give it roots. The essentials are straightforward: a platform for the musicians, perhaps with a cover; hard surface for dancing, all around the bandstand; places to sit and lean for people who want to watch and rest; provision for some drink and refreshment (some Mexican bandstands have a beautiful way of building tiny stalls into the base of the bandstand, so that people are drawn though the dancers and up to the music, for a fruit drink or a beer); the whole thing set somewhere where people congregate.</p>

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<h6>Place the bandstand in a pocket of activity, toward the edge of a square or a promenade - <a href="http://www.patternlanguage.com/apl/apl124/apl124.htm">ACTIVITY POCKETS (124)</a>; make it a room, defined by trellises and columns - <a href="http://www.patternlanguage.com/apl/apl69/apl69.htm">PUBLIC OUTDOOR ROOM (69)</a>; build <a href="http://www.patternlanguage.com/apl/apl93/apl93.htm">FOOD STANDS (93)</a> around the bandstand; and for dancing, maybe colored canvas canopies, which reach out over portions of the street, and make the street, or parts of it, into a great, half-open ten t- <a href="http://www.patternlanguage.com/apl/apl244/apl244.htm">CANVAS ROOFS (244)</a>. . . .</h6>

<h4><em>A Pattern Language</em> is published by Oxford University Press, Copyright Christopher Alexander, 1977.</h4>

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63. DANCING IN THE STREET

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