"Can you show me your favorite dance moves?"
Social media influencer Ed People has asked complete strangers that question all over the world — on city streets, in parks, on mass transit and anywhere else humans gather. He films the encounters and posts the results on his social media accounts which, combined, have more than 6 million followers.
He has a diverse list of dance partners: kids in Uganda and Nepal, young adults from Cuba and Ukraine, older adults at a senior center — and even a group of prisoners in the Philippines. Strangers have taught him everything from the waltz, reggaeton and bhangra to improvised steps like "washing windows" and "crawling backwards."
People, whose real name is Edouard Jacqmin, is a Belgian native in his early 30s. He says he hasn't had any professional dance training, but he can definitely bust some moves.
"Bro was killing it in the prehispanico dance, and then when I saw he did voladores de Papantla, I just about fainted!" wrote one commenter about a YouTube video compilation of his visit to Mexico.
His passion for dancing with other people is infectious. "I was never a fan of dancing alone," he told NPR. "It was always about learning from others and connecting through dance."
His project to unite people one dance step at a time was a happy accident of the pandemic. Before everything shut down, People was a DJ and music producer in Belgium. He'd also fallen in love with salsa dancing.
"I was taking classes, I was going to clubs. I was dancing all the time," he said.
When COVID hit and salsa dancing disappeared, he was crestfallen. So as soon as things opened up in 2021, People headed to a park looking for people to dance with. He found two guys and a girl dressed in 1920s-style outfits and dancing the Charleston.
"And I thought that was so cool and I came up to them and asked them, 'Would you teach me that dance?'" he recalled.
They agreed and People said he wanted to have a memory of it — so he placed his phone against a water bottle and pressed record.
A friend suggested he post the video on TikTok. At the time he had zero followers — but when he checked the next day, the video had 9,000 views. Commenters wrote that they liked the idea and asked if he could do the same thing in their city.
At first, he traveled to different cities with money he'd saved up from his work as a DJ and music producer. As his following grew, so did his income. He said he makes money directly from YouTube and Facebook based on the number of views and from brand partnerships. He now has a small team of video editors and an assistant who handles planning and logistics.
"We are here to try to really bring joy to people and to build bridges and to show different cultures around the world," he said. "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."
He admits he hears a lot of 'nos' when he asks if strangers will show him their moves. "Most people say 'Get away,' but of course you don't see that in the videos," he said, laughing.
Rejection hasn't slowed him one bit. Unless it's a slow dance.
Jennifer Vanasco edited this story for broadcast and digital.
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