Dancing for life in Czech Republic

For all of us at ArcelorMittal Ostrava, being a main partner of ‘Colours of Ostrava’ – an international music festival that attracts visitors from the Czech Republic, but also from Poland, Slovakia, Germany and other European countries – is about more than just sponsorship. We feel it is important to offer people an appealing experience related to ArcelorMittal. That is why we came up with a unique dance activity called: ‘Dance for Life’, which generates money for the local Blood Centre.

The initiative is based on a dance game called ‘machine dance’. It combines a simple computer game and a dance exercise remotely resembling aerobics. The player has to stay on a special dance mat and step at the right moment on the right area of the mat following the instructions on TV screen. The computer then evaluates each step with a grade and at the end shows the dancers their final score.

We decided to convert the score into money so that each dancer knows exactly on the spot how much money he or she contributed. People are happy when they can do something good for others. ArcelorMittal gave them this chance. And people made good use of it.

During the evening the tent was full of people willing to help. Everybody wanted to dance for life. In addition to dancing, all participants could also collect a very unique badge with their own dancing photo silhouette. If there had been a competition for the best accompanying programme of the festival, I believe we would have won with a big lead.

The uniqueness of the project was confirmed by Jan Horský, who has been doing ‘machine dance’ professionally since 2005 and who took care of the technical background of the initiative. As he mentioned, Dance for Life was an absolute world rarity at this year’s music festival. For the first time in the festival’s history, people could ‘machine dance’ and contribute to a noble cause at the same time.

By Radim Raszka, Communications, ArcelorMittal Ostrava and organiser of the fun, healthy and charitable activity.
Picture: Augustine Kochuparampil (left), CEO ArcelorMittal Ostrava and Radim Raszka (right), dancing for life