GOCA to host first campus noontime dance party

The UCCS Galleries of Contemporary Art’s campus gallery will host a Lunch Beat dance party from noon to 1 p.m. April 1 at GOCA 1420 in Centennial Hall.

Several UCCS staff members including Tamara Moore, executive director, Auxiliary Services, and Kirk Moore, director, Information Technology, will provide diverse dance beats for the first UCCS Lunch Beat event. Following the requirements of the Lunch Beat manifesto, a healthy take-away lunch and water will be provided.

A year ago, GOCA was the first in Colorado to host to the international Lunch Beat phenomenon and has hosted eight of these popular events in downtown Colorado Springs. This Lunch Beat is organized in collaboration with a UCCS student and the Chancellor’s Leadership Class as a campus wellness and community-building event. It is open to UCCS staff, faculty, students and community guests.

Lunch Beat was founded by Molly Ränge in June 2010 in the city of Stockholm, Sweden. Only 14 people attended the event. Now it’s an international zeitgeist. GOCA’s Lunch Beat events brought more than 900 people together to dance in Colorado Springs and the popularity keeps growing. Lunch Beat has more than 35 international branches and is quickly growing in the U.S.

Participants are asked to pre-register at no charge; donations are accepted at the door to help cover the cost of the lunch. No profit is to be made off of this event, or any future Lunch Beat events, according to Daisy McConnell, director, Galleries of Contemporary Art. The events have built significant new audience for GOCA and garnered press attention as a result of providing an innovative and joyful experience which guests can’t experience elsewhere. In the past year, Lunch Beat events were held at a variety of downtown Colorado Springs venues, including Ormao Dance Company, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, and Colorado College’s Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center. Future events are planned for Ivywild School Complex and other downtown venues.

This and all future Lunch Beats are regulated by the following manifesto:

1.  If it’s your first lunch at Lunch Beat, you have to dance.
2. If it’s your second, third or fourth time lunch at Lunch Beat, you have to dance.
3. If you are getting too tired to actually dance at Lunch Beat, please have your lunch some other place.
4. You don’t talk about your job at Lunch Beat.
5. At Lunch Beat everyone present is your dance partner.
6.  Any Lunch Beat are to be no longer than 60 minutes long and set during “lunch time.”
7. Lunch Beat events always serve guests with one DJ-set and one take away meal.
8. Water is always served during a Lunch Beat at no charge.
9. Lunch Beat is a drug free environment.
10. Lunch Beat can be set up anywhere by anyone as long as they are announced as public events, are nonprofit arrangements and are directed by this manifesto.

Guests are asked to pre-register at: http://tinyurl.com/k8hrxyj