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July 23, 2009

The Accidental Dancer: Where the Hell is Matt?

By Meryl Ann Butler

Matt Harding's quirky dance has been viewed nearly 75 million times online. He's been on Good Morning America, American Morning, The Early Show, Oprah and Ellen. What's the surprising secret to his success?

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Where the Hell IS Matt?

He's not hard to find. The unpretentious, self-described, "32-year-old deadbeat from Connecticut," currently resides right smack at the top four google results for "Matt."

Matt Harding's quirky "dance heard 'round the world" has been viewed nearly 75 million times online. He's no Barishnikov, yet his geeky dance moves have netted him personal appearances on Good Morning America, American Morning, and The Early Show. His video clips have been seen on a long list of daytime shows, topped by Oprah and Ellen.


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Time magazine called Where the Hell is Matt 2008 the best viral video of the year, neatly positioning it a full three places ahead of the seminal blockbuster, Hamster on a Piano (Eating Popcorn).

And now Matt's quirky new book offers more insights into his media miracle, inspiring lots of laughter and a few tears, as it sits happily on appreciative coffee tables.   


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Did he plan all this success? Nope. It all sort of just happened while he was busy "following his bliss," to quote the venerable Joseph Campbell.

A video game designer, Matt had responded sarcastically to their high levels of violence by quipping to his boss that the next game should be called, "Destroy All Humans."  They took him seriously. That game is now a hit. But Matt realized right away that he had sabotaged himself by inspiring a project that he had absolutely no desire to participate in.


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So he traded his increasingly unsatisfying job for footloose adventure. In 2003 he traveled around the globe for the duration of his savings. 

He and his friend Brad were hangin' in Hanoi, when Brad said the deceptively innocent words, "hey, stand over there and do that silly dance you do, and I'll record it on your camera."

It was an animated souvenir, akin to the familiar traveling gnome prank: featured in the 2001 movie, Amalie, a garden gnome is kidnapped, taken on a trip, and photographed at famous landmarks before being returned.


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So, Matt collected dancing clips as personal mementos for the remainder of the trip.

After returning to the U.S. from his six-month world adventure, Matt had "no job, no money, and no prospects." All he wanted to do was travel. He fell from the ecstatic highs of globetrotting adventure into a depression.

But the one thing he did have an abundance of, was time. So he carefully cobbled his little video together and premiered it to his family in an effort to cheer them up on the night of the 2004 Presidential election.

He reports that they found it "mildly amusing."


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Still, his sister wanted to show it to her friends, so he posted it on his Internet site. The following week it showed up on a supergeek forum, which triggered a thousand views, and in that wake it appeared on another site, sparking another 20,000 views.

In a month this "utterly unselfconscious video of a guy reveling in his inadequacies" was viral, a sure indication that what people want most of all is something that lifts their spirits and makes them smile.

Stride gum saw it and approached Matt. "Could we talk you into doing this again? For us? We'll pay."

Matt says, "it just dropped in my lap, the greatest thing in the world to do, the coolest job I've ever heard of." And then he was off on a trip around the world, accompanied for part of it by his new girlfriend, Melissa, who also contributed essential organizational skills.


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He went to 39 countries on seven continents, from Antarctica to Zanzibar. Dubai to Tikal.  He danced with elephants, kangaroos, dogs, and fish.   He danced in zero gravity twice.

He got arrested for dancing in Athens. (Ye gods, what would Zorba say?)

In Kjeragbolten, Norway, Matt danced on a rock that is naturally wedged between the two faces of a windy chasm. The wet, slippery surface is some one thousand meters above the water in the fjords below.


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You gotta admire a guy who will risk anything to get the right shot.

In between his fumbling footwork, he got to travel the way he loves best: "I'll take a few haphazard chunks of column over the big spectacle if it means I can see it on my own, without any guides explaining how it was put together, breaking the spell, ruining the ruins."

And he got hundreds of 15 to 20 second dancing clips, which he brilliantly edited into a 3 minute, 42 second, gem of a video. 

"I'm trying to incite curiosity in other people." he says, "I want to show people a tiny little snippet (of the world) and make them want to know more."

Matt's videos are at his site www.wherethehellismatt.com, and on YouTube. You'll laugh out loud unless you're a lifeless cynic, and then I'd prescribe watching all his videos nonstop until you can get your sorry priorities straightened out.

Before returning from his trip, the spark of another concept had begun to germinate for Matt - the even more radical idea of actually sharing the substantial joys of "dancing badly," by dancing badly with other people. So Stride gum sponsored his third trip. And to their credit, they didn't insist on mucking up Matt's artistic vision with a wad of gum in every take. They simply received a dignified credit at the end of the video.


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Melissa did the organizing, contacting the fans who had emailed him, to plan where and when to meet. Thousands of fans came to the party.

In Madrid, scores of dancers came from all over the country to dance badly with Matt. Turns out, via Internet communication, they had decided to generate the largest turnout of any country in the world. And it was here that Matt perfected his "run-in shot" with the group descending upon him from both sides after he had danced a few steps alone.


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The book offers the background stories of how Matt came to dance in a gorgeously costumed Bollywood dance scene in India, as well as in the more sedate setting of the North Korean Demilitarized Zone.


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And how he danced with Israelis, and with Palestinians. And with the Wigmen of Papua, New Guinea.


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The Chicago Tribune called the video, "spectacular, a cry of life and brotherhood and joy that will leave you grinning."

USA Today dubbed the internet sensation a "word-of-mouse phenomenon."

And the otherwise stodgy NY Times called it, "Almost the perfect piece of Internet art.... However you interpret it, you can't watch 'Dancing' for very long without feeling a little bit happier."

When asked about his favorite place in the world, Matt cites Bhutan, which is in the Himalayas, between China and India.


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"What fascinated me about (Bhutan, is that) in the 1970's the king decided not to measure the prosperity of his country in economic terms, the way that every other country on the planet was doing. He decided to literally gauge their prosperity based on happiness. He coined a term, gross national happiness.

"They have a Ministry of Happiness, an area of the government dedicated to maintaining the happiness of the country's population ... you can see, traveling through the countryside, that has been carried out ... ... the people I met in Bhutan are easily among the happiest I've ever met."


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You can take it from a guy who has been in 81 countries. Or take it from Business Week magazine. Citing a global survey conducted by the University of Leicester in 2006,  called the "World Map of Happiness," it rated Bhutan the happiest country in Asia.

 

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Finally, Matt says, "watching the video makes people feel happy. And what's better than that?"

Well, maybe there's one thing better. And maybe that's reading his book to find out more about staying on the road to happiness, enjoying the 275 photos of this travels.

And then, watching the video again.

RESOURCES & MUSIC

ABOUT THE MUSIC AND LYRICS:

Matt's friend Garry Schyman composed the music for both of Matt's videos sponsored by Stride gum. After Garry composed the music for the last, 2008 version, during their search for lyrics they discovered Rabindranath Tagore's poem, Stream of Life. The poem was originally published in Tagore's 1913 Nobel Prize-winning book, Gitanjali. Garry and Matt agreed that the words were perfect.

The problem was how to find a native female voice to sing it in the original Bangali. Melissa worked her cyber magic in moments, finding 17-year-old Palbasha Siddique, a singer who grew up in Bangladesh but is currently living in Minneapolis.


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The Alhambra, CA, clip of Matt dancing in front of Garry conducting the orchestra is Matt's grateful nod to Garry's contribution to both videos. Garry's musical composition is entitled "Praan," and is available on Amazon and iTunes.


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The stunning words below, in a loose translation to English, are the reason Matt selected this poem:

Stream of Life
by Rabindranath Tagore


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The same stream of life
that runs through my veins night and day
runs through the world
and dances in rhythmic measures.

It is the same life
that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth
in numberless blades of grass
and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers.

It is the same life
that is rocked in the ocean-cradle
of birth and of death,
in ebb and in flow.

I feel my limbs are made glorious
by the touch of this world of life.
And my pride is from the life-throb of ages
dancing in my blood this moment.

More info on the lyrics are at http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/faq.shtml

RESOURCES:

Where the Hell is Matt? Dancing Badly Around the World by Matt Harding. (Skyhorse Pub., 2009.) Available from Amazon and at Matt's website.

Matt's website: www.wherethehellismat.com Check out his blog for some great tidbits: a photo of Barack Obama enjoying Matt's video, a serendipitous meeting with Kenny G, and a sample chapter of Matt's book to download. Accessed July 14, 2009.

click here

Interviews with Alexandra Liss. Accessed July 12, 2009.
click here
click here
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Satisfaction with Life Index Map click here



Authors Website: http://www.OceanViewArts.com

Authors Bio:

Meryl Ann Butler is an artist, author, educator and OpedNews Managing Editor who has been actively engaged in utilizing the arts as stepping-stones toward joy-filled wellbeing since she was a hippie. She began writing for OpEdNews in Feb, 2004. She became a Senior Editor in August 2012 and Managing Editor in January, 2013. In June, 2015, the combined views on her articles, diaries and quick link contributions topped one million. She was particularly happy that her article about Bree Newsome removing the Confederate flag was the one that put her past the million mark.

Her art in a wide variety of media can be seen on her YouTube video, "Visionary Artist Meryl Ann Butler on Creativity and Joy" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcGs2r_66QE

A NYC native, her response to 9-11 was to pen an invitation to healing through creativity, entitled, "90-Minute Quilts: 15+ Projects You Can Stitch in an Afternoon" (Krause 2006), which is a bestseller in the craft field. The sequel, MORE 90-Minute Quilts: 20+ Quick and Easy Projects With Triangles and Squares was released in April, 2011. Her popular video, How to Stitch a Quilt in 90 Minutes with Meryl Ann Butler can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrShGOQaJQ8

She has been active in a number of international, arts-related projects as a citizen diplomat, and was arts advisor to Baltimore's CIUSSR (Center for Improving US-Soviet Relations), 1987-89. She made two trips to the former USSR in 1987 and 1988 to speak to artists, craftpeople and fashion designers on the topic of utilizing the arts as a tool for global wellbeing. She created the historical "First US-Soviet Children's Peace Quilt Exchange Project" in 1987-88, which was the first time a reciprocal quilt was given to the US from the former USSR.

Her artwork is in collections across the globe.

Meryl Ann is a founding member of The Labyrinth Society and has been building labyrinths since 1992. She publishes an annual article about the topic on OpEdNews on World Labyrinth Day, the first Saturday in May.

OpEdNews Senior Editor Joan Brunwasser interviewed Meryl Ann in "Beyond Surviving: How to Thrive in Challenging Times" at https://www.opednews.com/articles/Beyond-Surviving--How-to-by-Joan-Brunwasser-Anxiety_Appreciation_Coronavirus_Creativity-200318-988.html

Find out more about Meryl Ann's artistic life in "OEN Managing Ed, Meryl Ann Butler, Featured on the Other Side of the Byline" at https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/OEN-Managing-Ed-Meryl-Ann-in-Life_Arts-Artistic_Artists_Quilt-170917-615.html

On Feb 11, 2017, Senior Editor Joan Brunwasser interviewed Meryl Ann in Pink Power: Sister March, Norfolk, VA at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Pink-Power-Sister-March--by-Joan-Brunwasser-Pussy-Hats-170212-681.html

"Creativity and Healing: The Work of Meryl Ann Butler" by Burl Hall is at
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Creativity-and-Healing--T-by-Burl-Hall-130414-18.html

Burl and Merry Hall interviewed Meryl Ann on their BlogTalk radio show, "Envision This," at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/envision-this/2013/04/11/meryl-ann-butler-art-as-a-medicine-for-the-soul

Archived articles www.opednews.com/author/author1820.html
Older archived articles, from before May 2005 are here.


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