Today's forecast: a feather storm in Copley Square, outside theLouvre in Paris, and on the steps of the Opera House in Sydney ashundreds of people merrily whomp each other with pillows.
It's glasses off and soft pillows on for International PillowFight Day, organized in 21 cities by Generation Yers who areinviting friends and strangers to come together today for wallopingfun. At Copley, the 2 p.m. communal slumber party game is hosted bythe Banditos Misteriosos, Boston's new entry to the urban playgroundmovement.
Banditos Misteriosos and a second group called the Boston Societyof Spontaneity are the latest to join the social movement aimed atgathering, surprising, and entertaining people in public spaces. ButBanditos and BostonSOS seem to plan their fun more seriously. Theyclaim larger memberships than groups like the boombox-bearingensemble 123 Party! that created a stir last year by blaring '80shits while dancing in neon-green jogging suits throughout the city.And they're better organized than the so-called flash mobs that havespontaneously assembled people in public places for purely whimsicalreasons.
"Boston is a playground," declares the Banditos website."Banditos Misteriosos is the city's mysterious playmate."
Yet despite its name, Banditos Misteriosos is not secretive. Thisgroup of a dozen 20-something planners - and more than 500 members -aims to bring strangers together with family-friendly activities inpublic spaces.
"We want people to interact in urban areas in ways they're notused to, doing events that are free, simple, open to the public, andout of the ordinary," said Ethan Feuer, a Banditos Misterioso who isa Brandeis University admissions counselor.
That's what happened Feb. 23 at Faneuil Hall during the SilentDance Experiment. More than 300 strangers milling around the SamAdams statue suddenly bopped in synch. Headphone wires swung fromtheir ears as they high-fived, danced the Swim, and played modifiedfreeze tag in unison. Bemused bystanders joined in, posing like "TheThinker" and sharing participants' headphones to hear downloadedmusic and instructions. Copious giggling and a few group cheerspunctuated the joyous scene. The silent dance ended with a costumedMoses leading a conga line into Quincy Market.
The line passed the BosTix booth, where Joe Donlavey, director ofticketing and tourism for ArtsBoston, was working. "My first thoughtwas that this was a guided tour of the Freedom Trail," he recalled."But when we saw hundreds of people coming through with hands on theshoulders of the person in front of them, one of my staffers said,`I think it's one of those impromptu meetings done throughFacebook.' It was fabulous! They did a couple of shout-outs. Thatwas the best."
The event didn't impede business, Donlavey added. "And as peoplewalked out, a few came by the booth and asked about Blue Man Grouptickets."
The Silent Dance Experiment was the first event orchestrated bythe Banditos' 12-member planning board. Feuer and two friendsinitiated Banditos Misteriosos in December by launching a website(misteriosos.org) and its first event, also a pillow fight. Thegroup's name came from characters the founders created in a collegecomedy sketch.
"A lot of us were camp counselors. We think of Boston as ourcamp, and we're going to be coming up with fun events," said BaileyTriggs, a coordinator for a branch of the nonprofit EducationDevelopment Center, who joined the Banditos planning board.
The Internet is the Banditos' primary channel for publicizingevents, though the group also posts flyers. The group wants toattract a broad age group, but that's challenging. "These types ofevents are going to be aimed more at our demographic, because it'syoung people who do this type of thing," Feuer said.
Respect for public space is one factor driving the urbanplayground movement. It's an effort to redefine public space, tofree it from "the endless creep of advertising," as theInternational Pillow Fight Day website, pillowfightday.com, states.
"Public space in urban areas has had predictable and routine usesas a way of maintaining order in a chaotic urban environment," saidDavid Cunningham, an associate professor of sociology at BrandeisUniversity. "The urban playground movement challenges that. The ideaof play is a sharp critique of the consumerized space that surroundsus, and strips away the commercialization."
The other upstart group that embraces public space, BostonSociety of Spontaneity, sprung up around the same time the Banditosformed. The groups' memberships overlap, though their goals do not.BostonSOS wants to entertain.
"We are more of an interactive guerilla theater-type group," saidJames Cobalt, who started and runs the nearly 300-member troupe. Inwhat BostonSOS called its Frozen Food mission inside Quincy Marketjust before Banditos Miseteriosos' Silent Dance Experiment, morethan 50 BostonSOS performers abruptly froze in place for severalminutes.
BostonSOS is a spinoff of New York City-based Improv Everywhere,whose website declares it "causes scenes of chaos and joy in publicplaces." Improv Everywhere has not only surprised but alsooccasionally discomfited onlookers or businesses, as when 80 peoplesporting ersatz employee uniforms wandered around a large retailstore.
"I can see why some people find it confusing," Cobalt said, "butI don't think that confusing and harmful are the same thing."
BostonSOS staged its first event in early February, the No Pantssubway ride, in which 200 people on the Red Line casually removedtheir pants while on the train. "A lot of people wore extra layersof underwear for modesty, " Cobalt said. "Very few people wereoffended."
The Banditos are mum on what's in store after the upcoming pillowfight. "We have to fall back on our name and be a littlemysterious," Feuer said with a grin.
Ellen Freeman Roth can be reached at ellenfreemanroth.com.
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