AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Ed People is a social media influencer with millions of followers. But he doesn't sit in a room gaming or giving makeup tips. No, he is out in the world asking people to dance, as NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: Wherever he goes, Ed People asks complete strangers the same question.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ED PEOPLE: Can you teach me your favorite dance move?
UNIDENTIFIED DANCER: Yeah.
BLAIR: He has danced with kids in Uganda.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MNIKE")
TUMELO ZA: (Singing in Zulu).
BLAIR: Young adults from Cuba.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: One, two, three, five, six, seven. One.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BLAIR: And an older woman with long white hair.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BLITZKRIEG BOP")
RAMONES: (Singing) Let's go. They're forming in a straight line. They're going through a tight wind.
BLAIR: Ed People is in his 30s. He's tall and thin. He says he hasn't had any professional dance training, but he can definitely bust some moves. When you watch the videos, he and those who engage with him are having a blast. They teach him dances like the waltz and reggaeton but also improvised moves with names like crawling backwards and washing the windows.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KOORDDANSER")
TOURIST LEMC: (Singing in Dutch).
BLAIR: Call it a happy accident of COVID. Before everything shut down, Ed People was working as a DJ and music producer in Belgium. He'd also fallen in love with salsa dancing.
PEOPLE: I was taking classes. I was going to clubs. I was dancing all the time.
BLAIR: And then COVID hit, and salsa dancing disappeared.
PEOPLE: And I missed it very much. I realized how much important it was in my life.
BLAIR: So as soon as things opened up in 2021, Ed People headed to a park looking for people to dance with. He found two guys and a girl dressed 1920s style dancing the Charleston.
PEOPLE: And I thought that was so cool. And I came up to them and I asked them, would you teach me that dance?
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PEOPLE: And I loved it. We danced together, and I wanted to have a memory of it. So I took my phone out of my pocket. I placed it against my water bottle, and I pressed record.
BLAIR: A friend suggested he put the video on TikTok. At the time, he had zero followers. But when he checked the video the next day, it had 9,000 views.
PEOPLE: And I thought, wow, these people come out of nowhere. And I had three comments of people saying, oh, that's a very good idea. You should do that again. Can you do this in this city?
BLAIR: He admits he gets lots of rejections when he asks random people on the streets to dance.
PEOPLE: Most people say get away, so of course you don't see that in the videos.
BLAIR: On his combined social media accounts, Ed People has some 6 million followers. He makes money from some of the platforms based on views and from brand partnerships. He now has a small team of video editors. He's danced with the elderly in senior centers and prisoners in the Philippines.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "UN BESO")
JOSE ALAN: (Singing in Spanish).
PEOPLE: It was always about connecting with people and learning from others. The whole message of my own project is that dance is a very powerful tool for everything, whether you're dealing with emotions of joy or emotions of sadness, grief or anger, or whatever.
BLAIR: The format of Ed People's videos is pretty consistent, so is the joy. But the dance moves are as diverse as humanity itself. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALORS ON DANSE")
STROMAE: (Singing in French). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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