T

ens of thousands of people flooded Jl. Sudirman-Jl. MH Thamrin and the National Monument (Monas) in Central Jakarta to perform the Poco-Poco dance on Sunday morning, in the first attempt to set a Guinness World Record on the largest number of people performing the dance.

The event, which was organized by several government bodies, began at 6 a.m. and ended at 8 a.m.

But participants prepared for the dance as early as 1 a.m., many of whom were part of aerobics clubs, students of state schools, central government and city administration officials, as well as police and military personnel.

The opening of the dance was led by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, who was accompanied by First Lady Iriana and Vice President Jusuf Kalla and his wife Mufidah, as well as other Cabinet members.

“Sirs and madams, and all of your family and relatives,” Jokowi said before the dance, “Have a happy Poco-Poco dance, and I wish you all good health, I wish the people of our nation good health, and I wish our country good health. Thank you.”

Dancers flooded the main thoroughfares of the capital, which hosts government, commercial and embassy buildings, forming a massive dance stretching across 3 kilometers.

Three 16-year-old students — Ziana Naz Zahra, Khoirunnisaa Salsabila and Putri Amalia Kunaefi — from SMA 38 state high school were among the thousands of students participating in the event.

“Each participating school was allowed to send a maximum of 100 people.” Ziana said, adding that there were 98 students and two instructors joining the dance from her school.

Khoirunnisaa said they practiced the dance in school twice a week to prepare for the big day.

“Instead of going to the classroom, we practiced. It made school very fun this year.”

Almost all participants, aside from individuals or families who took part without registering, were given white uniforms, complete with waist-scarves with traditional print to wear by the organizing committees.

“We gathered at a dance studio at 1 a.m.,” said a participant who wished to be called Ecxha.

“It [the event] was announced earlier in June and we’ve been practicing the dance these past two months,” she said.

The popular line dance is known as a dance to accompany a song with the same name from Manado, North Sulawesi.

The traditional dance has been so popular as a crowd gatherer and joint gymnastic that it has also been performed by Indonesian communities in other countries such as Malaysia and the United States.

“The event has been recognized as an official attempt by Guinness World Records, as we started the application for the record last year.” Fernando Repi, the spokesperson of the Poco-Poco Guinness World Record Event Committee, adding that the guidelines and requirements given by Guinness were extremely strict and demanding.

Fernando said an official Guinness judge, Paula Sapinsky, flew into Jakarta and met the event organizers on Saturday, a day before the event.

“Gates and zones were put in place at the request of Guinness, to make sure the manual count was exact.” he added. “We gave all dancers wristbands, which were to be scanned and recorded by Ernst and Young Indonesia, after which the numbers need to be confirmed by the firm.”

Fernando explained that only after confirmation of the exact number of participants would the data be sent to Guinness to be evaluated. He said that official number had yet to be announced.

“The number of attendees is close to 65,000, but as far as I know it wasn’t exactly 65,000.” he said. (acr)