If there’s one word to best describe town hall meetings, “boring” comes to mind. Generally, the meetings are a chance for the town’s residents to air their grievances about sidewalks, storm drains, and parking ordinances, to name but a few unexciting instances. The city officials struggle to stay awake as they nod, smile, and then do pretty much nothing other than letting their constituents know they’ve been heard.
He obviously didn't understand when the meeting host said "let's break for five minutes" (YouTube/CranfordTV35)
They’re about as exciting as watching paint dry, but only if someone from the town told you that the paint was the wrong color and you’re being fined for it. Things are different in Cranford, NJ, however, where Will Thilly, hero of the common man, broke things up by breakdancing.
If Thilly, who’s running for the Township Committee in Cranford, is looking to start a movement, that movement includes moonwalking, the wave, and backspins. Given the standard five minutes to rant about birds or whatever, the intrepid Cranford-ian instead approached the mic wordlessly and started popping and locking. Slowly breakdancing his way up to the podium, he even did a backspin on the floor. Upon finally reaching it, he turned around, then grabbed some water and made his way back.
Almost two minutes later, Thilly finally started speaking to all those gathered, but about his weekend. Then he asked if anyone wanted to see him do a backspin. Met with resounding silence, he did one anyway, and finally got to the much less exciting point: asking why his taxes had gone up. While his dance skills are passable at best, perhaps the best thing about this whole affair is how the rest of the constituents reacted, or in this case, didn’t. His entire performance was met with silence, and from the looks of most of the other attendees, it was accompanied by total disdain.
Thilly called his dance “improv,” saying it was decided on the spot. “The main goal is to have our local government lighten up and look at the residents as friends and equals,” he said. “The division and lack of community decision-making is what seems to be our biggest problem. Not to mention people are overly stressed and taking stuff too seriously and are not feeling free to speak and express themselves as they might wish.”
The rest of the Town Hall didn’t seem particularly interested, but he’s got our vote, even though we don’t live in Cranford. As far as dancing politicians go, he’s definitely more agile than the current commander-in-chief, and if politics as we know it is broken, maybe it can be fixed with some breakin’.
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