Ballardites were surprised to see a group of thirty oddly dressed individuals dancing in the streets of Ballard during the evening hours on July 30.

The Ballard New-Tribune was somewhere near the Ballard Annex Oyster House when the dancing throng approached. Though there wasn't a common theme to their varying costumes, all of these gyrating bodies brandished glowing neon-lit headphones.

BNT staff began taking photos and one of the dancers approached. The woman looked to be no older than 25 and was covered in sweat from dancing. She said she was part of a group called What The Float, a private dance party that uses public spaces as their personal dance hall. They acquire their music through headphones, which are synced to a common mp3 source, so all the dancers hear the same music. Their music is inaudible to onlookers. One simply sees a sea of people ornamented with neon lights and body paint dancing in silence. The party looks as if it was transposed from a 4 a.m. rave in SODO. This is also known as a “silent rave,” or “crazy phantom stomping” to people not privy to the rave scene.

Without warning, the young woman put the headphones on the BNT staffer’s head. Electric sounds, strange techno gyrations punctuated with a booming bass flooded the BNT reporter’s innocent sound field. In a flash, their movements, their strange weaving, made complete sense.

The woman looked at her Dionysian comrades quickly departing.

“So where are you going next?” asked the reporter.

“I don't know. I just showed up to dance,” she reported.

“Groovy.”

According to the Internet, What The Float groups habitate in urban areas. They meet at planned locations in the neighborhoods they’ve decided to dance in. They press play and dance into the night, moving fluidly from one public space to the next, surprising bystanders and disturbing Lead reporters everywhere.

Witnesses reported seeing the group at Bergen Park at about 10:30 p.m. The BNT made contact with the group around 11 p.m. before they slipped off into the ether down Ballard Avenue N.W. heading south.