Trevor Dances With Matt

Trevor Lamb is a 2004 Staples graduate.  A former soccer captain, he played in college, returned to his alma mater as junior varsity coach, then gave in to his wanderlust and decided to explore the world.

He’s in his 2nd year in China — teaching, learning and loving life.

Along the way he heard about Matt Harding — the former video game developer who since 2003 has roamed the planet, filming himself dancing.

Matt became a global sensation. He danced — “badly,” which was part of the charm — in Mongolia, Cambodia, Antarctica, Machu Picchu, Namibia, New York, Fiji and Iceland.

And everywhere in between.

But let Trevor pick up the story:

I’ve been familiar with Matt’s video for some time.  Two weeks ago a friend told me he would be visiting Shanghai.  Unfortunately, I was leaving that same day for Hong Kong.

However, on arriving in Hong Kong I found out that his next stop was — Hong Kong.  So I would have the chance to dance with Matt after all.

The area designated by Matt on his Facebook event page was the “Walk of Stars” boardwalk (Hong Kong’s version of Hollywood’s, with people like Jackie Chan and Jet Li instead of Paul Newman and Arnold).

Groups of people, local and foreigners, young and old, arrived at 8 p.m. as expected.  Matt, however, did not.

Trevor Lamb (last summer at the World Cup in South Africa).

Despite his tardiness there was a great friendly energy in the air.  People were in a festive mood.  Some dressed up in cow, Super Mario, even drag queen outfits to celebrate the occasion.  Everyone talked about dancing with Matt.

Around 8:15 Matt arrived to a hero’s welcome from around 150 pseudo-fans.  We immediately got to business:  Standing in front of Hong Kong’s iconic skyline of triumphant buildings.

First Matt read to us a liability statement that we had to record in case he gets the video commercially sponsored, so no silly dancer can decide he wants a piece of the pie.  Then we tried 4 or 5 takes of dancing — happily, but strangely without music.

Some of the dances were more choreographed than Matt’s standard Irish gig-ish dance, but nothing too fancy — still straight-up Matt-style.  There were a dozen or so cameras recording.  Ironically, the smallest was Matt’s.  The others — from the media and Asian people — overcompensated.

The whole taping took 30 minutes.  Then hordes of people started taking photos with Matt, videos dancing with Matt, even giving Matt their babies to dance and take photos with.  It was like he was a celebrity equal to the names we were dancing on.

I had just arrived in Hong Kong and still had several errands to run, so I didn’t stick around to take photos and chat with Matt.  Later in the evening I  Facebragged that I had danced with the Matt.

That would be the end of the story, except for this:  Trevor had no idea that Matt was a fellow Staples graduate.  Trevor found out when someone — okay, I — commented on his Facebook post.

So Trevor and Matt parted without connecting over their shared high school experience — 8,037 miles from home.

“That made the experience somewhat bittersweet,” Trevor notes.

“Regardless,” he says, “dancing was a great experience, and I remain a strong supporter of the video and project.  It shows how we live in an age in which you can be famous not for being good looking, not even for being particularly talented, but for having an idea to make your dreams real, and in doing so unite scores of people from all corners of the world.”

After all that, he asks, “How can you not have an optimistic view of the future?”

Matt could not be reached for comment.  Wherever he is.