The Levity Project needs you. We have an idea. It is kinda different, but possible- with your help.
We want you to join us and celebrate your day today.
By dancing.
In your car.
In public.
We want you to car dance for World Peace(fulness).
In case you are new here, The Levity Project is a movement (and a blog) to create social change through public acts of play, laughter and celebration.
You may wonder this : How can car dancing make a lick of difference in the world?”
It can for one reason. It starts with you. I believe deeply that world peace begins with our own inner peacefulness. And while part of that peacefulness can be serene or meditative. Part of inner peacefulness is an ability to celebrate and let go. To allow ourselves to be in the flow of life.
Some of you may be reading this and thinking, “Well gosh, I sure don’t feel much “flow of life” in the car.” And that’s the beauty of it…what if we all experiment by allowing ourselves at a stop light, in our driveways, or in our work parking lots (gasp), and let loose with our favorite tunes. If it doesn’t sound brave, it is….try it. We have to risk “being seen”, but it is us being seen that is a gift to those around us.
Why car dancing?
Have you ever seen someone car dance with abandon? You can’t help but smile. To see someone so fully in their own joy is powerful and mood shifting. It is witnessing someone in an act of celebration for their life or at the least, the present moment. It is pretty hard to car dance if you are in a crummy mood…in order to do it we have to elevate ourselves to the place of joy.
And that is the basic premise of The Levity Project….that we are all agents of change. We all have the power to go out and make a difference, not necessarily by being a political or social activist, even though those are needed roles. It is even simpler, you are an agent of change by simply being YOU on this planet.
How cool is that?
Here is the new part. As many of you know, The Levity Project travels around and brings people together to laugh play, and celebrate in public places to enlighten a city setting. Since there are more people interested in having us visit their cities than we can get to right now…we had an idea-we wanted to experiment with an idea we came up with called –”a micro-movement”. It is the new version of the flash mob idea-without any time or location limits.
A micro-movement means that you in your offline life, go out, by yourself or with a couple others and create change. And someone two towns over is doing it, some people across the country, and others in different places around the world. The “social movement” comes together online when you send us your video clip of you creating your own personal change.
Each of our micro-movements become part of a whole. We, at The Levity Project will put together all of the clips of people car dancing and all of you agents of change will come together online to create one movement.
Will you help us? Car Dancing is just the first of this series…we would like to have all videos by Feb 15th.
If you are interested, follow these steps.
1. Go out and dance in your car (we recommend a practice session)-Please be safe. Car dancing while stopped is safest.
2. Video tape yourself or your friends or your family car dancing to your favorite music-a 10-15 second clip is ideal.
3. Email us that you have the clip ready to send using our contact us form CONTACT US
4. You will receive uploading instructions to send your video
5. Voila. Your micro-movement become a part of a bigger vision.
Below is a video done by our ever talented and wonderful, operations manager, Ina Lukas. Your video does not need to have all the fancy stuff…just the beauty of you dancing and celebrating!
And yes, if you walk or bike instead of driving a car….by all means, shake it and send it!
We are grateful for your help, please pass on to anyone who might do it and we look forward to dancing with you all together.
Let the celebration of inner peacefulness and joy begin!
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{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
Why does this scare me???
And…Ina!! You (and your kids) make it look soo easy! Woohoo! Keep rockin’ your car (and the world!)!!
*cough* *cough* practice run (or is that..dance…) today…yikes!
I’m a car dancer myself. Actually prefer to car dance instead of dancing with my feet.
On my commute home I’m going to put on some Michael Jackson and dance. He always gets me shaking my booty. He is missed.
I LOVE this idea!!!!! Kelly and I will so car dancing on the way home today and posting it as instructed.
Consider me more than micro moved!!
Now where’s that K.C. and The Sunshine Band CD??? Hmmn…
xo
p.s.
You’re are now on the Funny Blogs Awards List, in my following post.
http://www.janniefunster.com/2010/01/25/and-i-thought-leaven-was-just-a-bread-baking-thing/
xo
WORLD PEACE DEFINITELY BEGINS WITH OUT OWN INNER PEACE!
So very true, and such an important message to know and spread.
I’ll sing in my car today out loud with the windows down:)
Adding you to my links. Joy is contagious!
I will definitely be dancing in my car today as I had for annual physical. I just have not trained the standard poodle how to run the video machine. My song today “Everybody Have Fun Tonight- Wang Chung”.
with a smile and a belly laugh,
elaine
I love this I can now see myself sitting at the lights dancong in the car- I love it.
Thanks to Lance for introcusing me to your blog
I think the Levity project is a amazing , thank you
Namaste
Suzie
Walking in my neighborhood today I passed two folks getting out of their car, one a cook headed to work and the other a Rastafarian. Out of the car was blasting a reggae a song called “Never met a woman like you” and they were both dancing. I danced with them out on the street for a moment– what bliss! I wish I had a video camera…
I love this idea! I dance anywhere anytime it is my favorite activity! Count me in and good luck!
@Lance….and wearing a cheerleader outfit to work does not scare you? Maybe we should talk….or dance! As always thank you for your support and I look forward to seeing your video.
@Karl MJ has always been so good for the car…in fact my first car dancing memories were of dancing to Billy Jean in the way back of a friend’s station wagon. What a great way to shake off word day stress!!!
@Jannie! I imagined that you would be quite on board with this idea! Yay! Put that iPhone to good use and shake it! And THANK YOU FOR THE HONOR of being on your site…really means so so much. And now I am officially a “Flogger”
@Aurora Welcome and I am so excited to jump over to your site as soon as I write this! When you are blogging do you ever have the experience of watching what you have thought for a long time suddenly become a life philosophy that you are sharing for all to read? That is how I feel about the idea of inner peacefulness linking to world peace. Thanks for the agreement!
@Elaine Somewhere between reading about your non video trained poodle and reading the name “Wang Chung”, I got a huge smile on my face. Thanks and keep groovin and let everyone see!
@Suzie Nice to meet you and thanks for visiting! During the past year when I was putting together the idea for The Levity Project, I was dancing at a stop light….I saw a car pull up but was so into the music I kept going. Finally, I looked over and saw that they were cracking up laughing. Ordinarily, I would have stopped, somewhat horrified. But I kept going and you know what, they joined in and there we sat busting a move in the front of line of cars. Now I never stop….who knows maybe the whole intersection might start dancing!
@Rebecca Ooh your story makes my day. It is that kind of freedom that can truly change our world. The spontaneous coming together of dancing, of laughing, or of playing together is so vital for deepening our understanding of connectedness…I am not surprised that you joined in so easily.
Katie I love that! I’m not a dancer, but I could be if properly motivated. I love what you said yesterday in your interview at The Jungle Of Life — how you started the Levity Project after witnessing people’s grim reactions to you being happy on the subway. Powerful stuff; people don’t seem comfortable with the idea of letting loose, loving life and having FUN!
You’re changing that, one car dance at a time. Thank you!
I’ve done this for years. I love music so I can’t help myself and it always makes me smile when someone catches me and laughs at me. It’s put a smile on their face!
Hi Katie,
My very first guest post was about how vital it is to be silly and that my method of being silly is to dance in my car while I drive. You can find it in my archives, in case you are curious.
Car dancing is so much fun. I blast the music and pretend I am on stage singing my little heart out. The looks I get are priceless. So amen for car dancing!
And I am with Karl…Michael Jackson is missed. One of the best songs to car dance to is “Do Wanna Be Starting Something”.
Rock on, Katie!
I grew up in a house with car dancing, cooking dancing, cleaning dancing… you name it. I don’t drive but my daughter and I do sidewalk singing and dancing a lot. There is nothing like waiting for the light to change and just… singing! We also do a little grocery dancing and singing if the music is right.
I love this Katie… I hope that there was a lot of dancing around the world yesterday!
OK, I’m in!
I will commit to dancing in my car later today!
Alex
Well now,
So this is what happened. I was more then happy to dance in my car. I guess it was my practice session cause I wasn’t recording it. BUT I was witnessed by my 33 year old daughter, my 12 year old daughter and my 12 year old granddaughter.
I was at a red light and I suddenly remembered that I had read this this morning and had agreed to myself that the day should not pass that I would do this if I got in my car. SO…there was talk radio on the radio but I didn’t let that stop me, I just spontaneous burst into dance and wiggled and jiggled with arms held high above my head clapping and dancing and bouncing in my seat to the horrification of the three witnesses in the car. All three of them started screaming for me to stop and and wondering aloud if I had lost my marbles and my 12 year old daughter slunk under the seat lest she be observed anywhere near said lunatic.
It was fun. Although I don’t think I will be able to convince any of them to video tape it for a second time let alone be there when it happens.
Fantastic Blog!!! So glad to find it. I was just car dancing yesterday (unintentionally). Maybe it made someone smile. Look forward to following you here.
Wow Katie just when I thought I knew all these wonderful “happiness inspiring” things you were doing, you come up with new ones!
This sounds and looks like A LOT of fun! You go!
As for me I missed the official day, but I must admit I do like to bob around a little in the car sometimes
You go Katie, how fun is this?!? A great answer to road rage.
I did a video of me in my car, by me, but I don’t think it had the same effect as some one else taping me. Kelly said she’s up for the job!
Car dancing is almost a lost art. SO GLAD you are bringing it back Katie!
I’ve been working with my future step kids since this summer.
LOVE YOUR VIDEO! Too too cute!!!
Dear Katie.
I
LOVE
THIS
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
YES!
This is soooooooo cooooool. I am just totally laughing my face off and dancing in my office chair. If I were there I would be daning with you and hugging you and the kids. They are just waaaaaaay too precious. I watched this 3 times. And could watch it all over again. The cool thing it will do is make the people next to us at the red light laugh!!
You are the BEST!!
((((HUGS))))
Robin
PS My dear friend Lance told me about you way back.
Oh my gosh, I am cracking up. This reminds me of me and my kids but also of Ellen. I love to car dance. It is especially funny when no one else can hear your music! Thanks for doing this!!
Peace(fulness) to you and all!
Terie
This is a really cool idea and you looked fabulous doing it. You are the Queen of Lighten Up!
haha! This is great! I have made my video at Lance E’s request. Please send me downloading instructions. Too funny!
I have done car dancing for years. Always have music on and and sing and dance. I’ve gotten looks also but I don’t care because I just smile back
Car dancing is the best! There’s just nothing like turning that music up and jammin’! My daughter and I dance and sing in the car all the time. Maybe that’s why no one wants to ride with us. lol