And that was OK, too.
"Who cares! We're dancing in the streets!" one not-necessarily-a-conga-line participant shouted as she swayed along the sidewalk at Geary and Stockton, part of the writhing leviathan of a couple of hundred free spirits -- downtown office workers on lunch break, various passers-by, tourists and even Mr. Fezziwig.
"I'm Mr. Fezziwig at the Dickens Fair, so I'm used to dancing for seven hours straight in the Christmas party," said Dave Batzloff of Alameda. "But I'm happy to conga, too. Hey, I've got to dance."
Frivolity and Fezziwig aside, there actually was a point to all this: kicking off Bay Area National Dance Week, during which people are encouraged to shake what their mama gave them and maybe take a dance class or two. Dozens of free events are scheduled through May 4. For a list, check out http://www.bayareandw.org.
"Dance is medicine," said conga coordinator Chi Chi Okonmah of Oakland. "No matter what's going on,
dancing makes it all better. So think of this as a free prescription for whatever ails you."
The dance line was led by professional dancers Kellita Maloof of the Hot Pink Feathers and Everett Harper -- the queen and king of this year's Carnaval.
They were scantily clad. Red-feather boas were involved.
Before the line got going, they demonstrated a few steps for the crowd. "OK, put one hand on your hip, and right hand up, pumping the air," Kellita said. "As you pump up, guess what pumps out? That's right. Your hips. Then your locomotion goes," she said, her locomotion going to town in the form of swirling red-boa tail feathers. Would-be conga dancers tried this as well, but it didn't have the same effect in Dockers.
They headed out. A bunch of guys dressed like the Blues Brothers -- actually a band called Blue Bone Express from Oakland -- started playing "Lassus Trombone" with that sassy, brassy, sloppy sound of New Orleans jazz.
"As we get going on the street, the music will tell you what to do!" Kellita shouted out.
For Dijana Steinmetz, the music was telling her to skip work. "The boss let me out early," said Steinmetz, office manager for a commercial real estate group downtown. "Our office is, shall we say, not known for this kind of behavior. So this is great. I had to come out and shake something!"
They started off pretty well, hands pumping, hips thrusting. Random people joined the line like rats charmed by the Pied Piper. As they moved down Geary to Grant, passing a Sunglass Hut and the Betsey Johnson store, the pump-and-thrust routine dissolved into personal variations of the mambo, the cha-cha, interpretive dance and even possibly the Funky Chicken.
They danced noisily up Grant, the band playing "When the Saints Go Marching In," encouraging a window washer on a cherry picker to do a controlled hula. A clerk at the door in Hermes looked bewildered. On Post, the mob wiggled past Bulgari and back toward the square, then crossed Powell, holding up a cabbie at the light. He honked and waved a vigorous gesture, either from anger or enthusiasm. It was hard to tell.
They finally arrived in front of Macy's again, totally ignoring the cute shoes in the Louis Vuitton window, then back into the square, out of breath and filled with satisfaction.
The medicine had kicked in.
Contact Angela Hill at 510-208-6493. Read Give'Em Hill in Bay Area Living on Sundays.
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