Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own” is playing, and the irony is not lost on me. I am, indeed, shuffling in time to the music by myself. Scattered around, a handful of people are doing likewise, not quite meeting each other’s eyes.
It’s the middle of the day, and none of the elements that would make dancing in Great Britain socially acceptable apply here: we are not a) doing an exercise class, b) half-cut at a festival, or c) half-cut at a wedding. Instead, we are stone-cold sober and in full view of strangers at London’s Southbank Centre. And yet there’s a bigger, more important mood underpinning what’s going on here this afternoon, one that’s powerful enough to trump any lingering, surface-level embarrassment.
