How I became a world record holder

Matthew d'Ancona

13 September 2008

At a Google conference in Rhodes, Matthew d’Ancona finds himself part of a bid to break the world record for Zorba dancing — and to relive one of the greatest scenes in cinema

I sat in the conference hall with one of the organisers watching the clip of Bates and Quinn do their stuff on YouTube. It looked rather difficult. The rhythm changed unexpectedly from 4/4 to 2/2. What was that you were supposed to do with your right leg? And all the leg crossing and uncrossing struck me as best left to the experts. But there was no backing down now. As Zorba says: ‘Why did God give us hands? To grab!’ And feet, of course, to dance. Even if, as in my case, they are both left feet.

I almost didn’t make it. By the time I got to the Kallipateira sports complex, just by Zefiros beach, the party was well under way. Hundreds of Googlers had already linked their arms around the floodlit track and were being put through their paces by dancers in national dress on podia. I joined a group of voluble German and Austrians who looked like they knew what they were doing.

At which point, a booming voice over the PA system reminded us that we would be filmed and scrutinised by the Guinness Book of World Records. This was serious. Jumping around aimlessly in line would not pass muster. A few bad apples — or olives, in this case — could spoil the whole barrel. Two last rehearsals. I didn’t want to let the side down. Was I getting any better? Still closer to Alan Bates the pupil than Anthony Quinn the master, I feared, and sometimes stepping forward boldly with the wrong leg entirely. The increasingly precise Germans demonstrated Zorba durch Technik but were polite enough not to kick out this British interloper.

Then it was time for the real deal. A final warning and then the first inimitable notes of the Theodorakis melody filled the stadium. Step, step, and off we went. More than 1,500 people doing the Zorba dance, speeding up, speeding up until the music became a dizzy aural blur. And just for a minute, I must admit, it was bloody wonderful, so much more than a stunt. We were all back on that Cretan shore in black and white, celebrating nothing in particular with complete conviction. Something about the ritual and the primitivism of the dance.

Who would have thought it? The global company that defines high-tech modernity staging a gathering so ancestral and so visceral in its inspiration, in sight of the wine-dark sea. Google meets The Golden Bough. Maybe that’s part of the point about the web: it joins people together like a great global dance.

And then it was over and the record had indeed fallen: 1,672 people officially counted as participating in the Zorba dance, each rewarded with a medal. The Germans offered high fives. The crowd dispersed slowly towards the mediaeval Old Town and its lovely tavernas. The stars sparkled in the night, smiling at the throng below and the pride of those who, like the old peasant, dare to dance ‘for the hell of it’.

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Suresh Dogra

September 15th, 2008 5:37am Report this comment

Zorba the Greek is an interesting novel.I don't find the movie measuring up to the poignancy of the text.Besides,it is good as a work of fiction but to think that the character or alternative vision of life presented in the novel can or should be emulated in real life
is a serious misunderstanding.Zorba is an unproductive bohemian maverick.Thoreau says be not only good but also be good for something.What is Zorba good for? Kazantazakis' vision of life as reflected in the novel is superficial and the movie based on it is no better.

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