Courtesy of Chad Nicholson

"Frozen Grand Central," staged by Improv Everywhere, made national news when 200 people suddenly froze in place on Feb. 24, 2007, inside New York's busy train station.

They synchronized their watches, then gathered at noon at the Roanoke City Market, where they waited in inconspicuous groups of three or fewer. The plotters had been invited via phone calls and e-mail, and told to dress like everyone else, so as not to draw attention to themselves.

At a sign, they began to dance.

It was Nov. 20, 2008 -- six months before last month's now-infamous "Must See TV" event in the same spot.

About 50 people that fall day stripped off their outer wraps in unison to expose their United Way T-shirts, and danced on the City Market to the music of James Brown, to draw attention to the annual campaign.

"We just danced for, like, four minutes," recalled Daria Goode, Mill Mountain Theatre's development director. "We kind of got a little crowd going. It was all positive. People were really getting into it."

And the song?

"I Feel Good."

The 'brat' and 'Barney Fife'

"Must See TV," as most of us know, didn't turn out quite so well.

An officer who didn't see the humor in it ordered people to disperse. A young college student was arrested.

The event has touched off a firestorm that as of this writing is still raging on blogs and the opinion pages of this newspaper. The event has been labeled "asinine," and the arrested college student "a brat." Others have fired back that the police officer who made the arrest was reminiscent of the Keystone Cops or Barney Fife.

What is not clear to many, despite numerous news stories and much commentary, is what exactly was going on between 12:30 and 12:35 p.m. May 14, when about 60 people froze in place around the downtown market, their gazes glued to TV sets. The event involved a number of the city's arts and cultural leaders, as well as local college and high school students

The idea for the event was downtown resident Katherine Walker's, though others, including artist Beth Deel and Cory Dorathy, helped put it into motion. The general concept, Walker said, was to playfully pose a question about how we spend our time -- but she said it was purposely left open to interpretation.

"Asking an ambiguous question is interesting to me," said Walker, the founding director of the Batten Leadership Institute at Hollins University and wife of downtown developer Ed Walker. "I think one of the things that surprised me was the level of discomfort that came with the ambiguity about it."

Also surprising, she said, has been the intensity of opinions about the event -- which seem to highlight larger differences about where Roanoke is headed.

Before "Must See TV," Walker said, "I didn't appreciate the depth of the divide."

Performance art

"Must See TV" did not come out of nowhere.

In fact, it stands at the crossroads of a couple of cultural currents -- one at least half a century old, the other almost new.

The first is Performance Art, a 20th-century art form that gained popularity in the 1960s and '70s, and focuses much more on the idea behind a work than the work itself. Performance Art typically involves an artist giving a provocative unrehearsed performance in public or on video (or both), often to make a political or moral point.

Yugoslavia-born performance artist Marina Abramovic once lived in an art gallery for 12 days without food -- an event later fictionalized in an episode of "Sex and the City." In 1974, she surrounded herself with various sharp instruments and a loaded pistol, and allowed gallery visitors to do what they wanted to her -- an experience that convinced her "if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed."

American performance artist Chris Burden has had himself shot in the arm by an assistant and nailed, crucifixion-style, to the back of a car.

Virginia Tech art professor Yonsenia White said performance art came into its own in the '60s, when many things that were happening -- the Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, assassination after assassination -- that seemed too big to be expressed by artists in the old ways.

Artists engaging in performance art often use their own bodies as a means of expression, White said. "There's something about using your body that's visceral, confrontational, in your face."

"Must See TV" was obviously much gentler than some performance art and included a strong element of play.

White liked it. "I thought it was great," she said.

But she also said it raises lots of questions for the Star City: "Does Roanoke really want that? Is Roanoke ready for this form of artistic expression that's been around for 40 years? Does Roanoke understand what that means?"

Enter: the 'flash mob'

"Must See TV" is also a product of the age of the Internet, when videos and e-mails spread instantaneously around the globe.

On the heels of 20th-century performance art have come the "flash mobs" of the 21st century, in which groups of people are mobilized, often via mass e-mails, to appear in public and do ... well, all kinds of things.

One of the more popular new videos on the Internet these days is a scene from the Antwerp, Belgium, train station that took place March 23. The video begins with a loudspeaker droning information as people move to and fro.

Unexpectedly, the voice of Julie Andrews takes over, singing the "Do Re Mi" song from "The Sound of Music." Hundreds of people dressed like everyone else in winter wraps, many of them children, start to dance.

Far from being an authentic "flash mob," the well-choreographed dance number was an elaborate promotion for a reality TV show, "Search for Maria" -- but that didn't stop the video from quickly going viral, with 4.5 million views on YouTube as of Thursday. (To see it, search YouTube for "Antwerp Station and the Sound of Music.")

By the end of the routine, the video shows people in the station clapping with the music and even dancing along. There was applause when it ended.

Roanoke artist Katherine Devine saw the Antwerp video shortly before she received an e-mail inviting her to be a part of "Must See TV."

The Roanoke event "seemed like the same spirit," said Devine, who participated, along with her 17-year-old daughter, Isha, on May 14. "It never crossed my mind that it would turn into anything aggressive. I thought this was an opportunity to give another shot in the arm to making downtown a creative place."

Improv Everywhere

Even bigger than the Antwerp station video is "Frozen Grand Central" -- 17 million hits and counting on YouTube. The video shows 200 people suddenly freezing in place at the sound of a whistle inside New York's busy train station. They remain motionless for 5 minutes.

The Feb. 24, 2007, event, staged by Improv Everywhere, made national news. It has since spawned hundred of imitators around the globe, said Improv Everywhere founder Charlie Todd. Based in New York City, Improv Everywhere was founded in 2001 to cause "scenes of chaos and joy in public places," according to its Web site.

Katherine Walker said she saw "Frozen Grand Central" before coming up with the idea for "Must See TV."

"We never dreamed people in cities across China would be imitating it," said Todd, who has co-authored a book about Improv Everywhere called "Causing a Scene."

"I think part of the reason it spread so globally is that the idea is so simple," he said of the Grand Central Station event. "It transcends language. Everyone can relate to what it must be like to witness a crowd stop time."

Todd said similar "freeze" events have now been staged in 200 cities, but Roanoke's is the first to lead to an arrest.

As for obtaining a permit to assemble, which some have suggested might have eliminated problems in Roanoke, Todd said Improv Everywhere never does.

"We believe people should have the right to free assembly, especially when the gathering is for peaceful comedy purposes."

Forward or backward?

To some, the debate about "Must See TV" has exposed an irony in Roanoke's efforts to reinvent itself as an arts and cultural attraction. Those efforts were highlighted by the opening of the $66 million new Taubman Museum of Art last fall.

"You can't present Roanoke as a creative city and then have it be that anything that crosses the line is going to be stomped on," Devine said. "We have to accept that sometimes things will cross the line of what we've come to expect."

Lost in the blizzard of publicity, in Katherine Walker's opinion, is that "Must See TV" really was a success. For a few minutes on a busy weekday lunch hour, people actually stopped to look.

"It was amazing how quiet it was," Walker said. She said to her knowledge, none of the passers-by complained.

Walker also described a recent meeting in which she and a small group of artists sat down with City Manager Darlene Burcham, police Chief Joe Gaskins and other city officials to talk about "Must See TV." When Walker prefaced a comment at one point with "If I'm ever a part of something like this again --," the reaction was immediate.

"People said, 'No, no, no, we have to do it again,' " Walker said. "It was a really good discussion."

Walker said events like "Must See TV" are likely to happen here again.

"It's either forward or backward," Walker said. "You don't really get to stand still."

Online: improveverywhere.com