Big Dance world record attempt

Posted on May 18, 2012

At 1pm today, thousands of schoolchildren in the UK and across the world will attempt to break a world record with created by Wayne McGregor. The record attempt will take place simultaneously in more than a thousand schools throughout the UK and across Europe, the US, South America, South-East Asia, the Middle East and Far East.

Each school will learn the same piece of choreography, which can be downloaded from the Big Dance website. McGregor said: “On the day the Olympic Torch arrives in the UK, young dancers throughout Britain and in our partner countries worldwide will share a unique moment in time, dancing together and in unison, sharing our passion for the art form we love.” The current world record for the largest simultaneous multi-venue dance is held by The Netherlands, with 1,472 locations and 265,188 people dancing.

The new record attempt is a warm-up for this summer’s Big Dance, running from July 7–15 as part of the London 2012 Festival. McGregor will also create a mass dance for more than 1,000 dancers, to be performed in Trafalgar Square on July 14. See www.bigdance2012.com for more information.

Picture: a Big Dance mass dance event. Photograph: Kois Miah

Zoe Anderson

Zoë was born in Edinburgh, and saw her first dance performances at the Festival there. She is the dance critic of The Independent, and has also written for The Independent on Sunday, The Scotsman and Dancing Times. In 2002, she received her doctorate from the University of York for a thesis on “Nationhood and epic romance: Ariosto, Sidney, Spenser”. She is the author of The Royal Ballet: 75 Years and The Ballet Lover’s Companion.