LEBANON: Amateur video footage appears to show spontaneous dance party at Beirut airport

 

Forget the long boring waits and your average airport experience. At Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport, it's apparently a party. The airport sprang to life a couple of days ago when travelers and members of the airport staff all of a sudden joined hands and started dancing to traditional Arabic music and modern tunes in the airport hall, according to amateur video footage posted on YouTube.

"Beirut's Rafic Hariri Intl. Airport came to life when I saw employees, security staff and passengers of all ages dancing to a mix of Lebanese folk & modern dance music! Gotta love the Lebanese spirit!," said a description of the video.

In the clip, said to have been filmed at the airport on March 5, some people are also seen pulling what appears to be break dance moves and doing cartwheels on the floor as more and more bystanders join the dancing crowd.

Talking about spicing up your airport experience.

--Alexandra Sandels in Beirut

Video credit: YouTube

Comments

[Abusalaf]

Hmmmm
surprizeeee

I am not Syrian.... but i did visit Syria and Lebanon several times

Although Syria has a non democratic system in place, it is a least self dependent and has excellent manufacturing base as well as agricultural one, you feel Syria is a proper country given all what's going on around it. You also feel a true culture and real history...every one seem to get along well.... the country had very similar ethnic mix as Lebanon but hardly any issues.

Looking at poor Lebanon, jeeeee.... one feels sorry for the country...there is no manufacturing what so ever, the country is totally dependent on begging from other Arab countries and imports

Advertising is Syria is primitive and very funny due to its poor style ....but some how entertaining and funny and the message is difficult to forget

I Lebanon, Advertising was pretty much copies of other international ads. they try to look sophisticated but some how ends up looking FAKE... to be honest the whole country feels fake and whites wanna bees. you keep wondering what is Lebanese culture.... your dont feel such culture

you do feel more political freedom in Lebanon but also very poor taste in political debate.... some how NAWAR when it come to local politics

Every group in Lebanon has loyalty to a foreign country.... very very oddd

women looked really fake, they all look the same with lots and lots of heavy make up...women in Syria look quite natural and realyyyyyyyyy pretty

Lebanon feels like a pirate ship

Father of Sideburns AKA Abusalaf

[Marc]

Abusalaf!!! go enjoy "7alib karam" advertisement... typical syrian...
Go do something nice in Tartous or Deir Zour than come and preach about your heritage..

[LibanLibre10452km2]

@ Abusalaf; And when was it the last time a poor soul syrian like you posted anything worth watching anywhere on the net? oh let me guess your dictator that you call president won't let you...haha. Peharps it is jealousy that is coming through your comments made it so obvious that the lack of any creative idea or a lack of any form of free expression in your s--t h--ole that you call "oumma". You guys should try and have at least 1 advertising company come up with 1 idea worth looking at. And by the way, my neighbor is still looking for his car and refrigerator that you dad stole when he was serving in Lebanon on a check point harrassing us...oh let me rephrase that, while he was protecting us!!! What a bunch of brown nosers loosers, moo.

[Abusalaf]

I didn't realize that dancing is EXCLUSIVE to Lebanese. You make it sound that ONLY Lebanese celebrate their culture. IN FACT, Lebanese and the furthers from their culture in the Arab world, many even claim to belong to a disappearing race (Phoenician) when they are actually 99% Syrians.....lol

Once fake will always be fake...

Funny the Lebanese never liked each other but they all like Syrian Dabkeh and SYRIAN food

[Lebanese in Dubai]

Well, its official, Beirut Duty Free has something on its official page saying that it was created by M&C Saatchi.
Nice try!

There is nothing wrong with doing something like this, but don't try to pass it off as "spontaneous" when it so obviously isn't. Call it for what it is - an ad rather than an example of the unpredictable fun of the lebanese people.

[sam]

@lebanese guy.
that makes 3 of us then if thats the way you think why post your reply pot calling the kettle black.
thank you.

[Lebanese Guy]

To sam, (not the lebanese sam but the one who replied to alanmirs): Seriously dude, the world can also do without you and your stupid comment as well. You probably got your historic understanding from Golda meir and Netanyahu. Talk about posting a totally unnecassary comment.

As for the lebanese sam: Just wanna say well said to you. Viva Lebanon.

[sam]

What are you talking about Gary? First of all M&C Satchi did something similar in London for T-Mobile so not sure how its stolen.
In anycase its pretty obvious its a set up, but thats not the point! It was still creative and took a lot of choreographing. It was simply an AD for Beirut Duty Free and it worked as its kinda gone viral (for something that came out of Lebanon anyway). Lebanese are known for this music and their dances and I would say they do it better than most cultures so what's wrong with exploiting that? You're kinda a lost cause if you cant see the fun and success of this ad.

[Garo Sarkisian]

sam, your pathetic. Typical lebanese who start defending a lie just because it was another lebanese who came up with it. Thats not civilized. There is nothing unique about people dancing, people do it all the time, they listen to songs in their language and dance to it. The problem here is that this was an AD (STOLEN IDEA) as well as a cheap PR trick by M& C satchi who attempted to give a nice image of lebanon to the travelers to get them to come back. And they tried to do it by fooling people that this just happened spontaneously as if it wasent planned and as if it wasent a PR trick. THATS THE PROBLEM.

[sam]

please do not confuse the posting of one sam with another sam.
thank you.

[sam]

@alanmirs.
this video has nothing to do with the state of israel its about a video in lebanon.
so why try to turn it into a forum for your lack of historic understanding and hate its people like you that the world can and wishes to do without.
there are plenty of places on the web for you to vent your hate why not use them oh you proberly do never mind one day you will i expect grow up mind you brainwashed people like you proberly never do enjoy your hate i hope it drives you mad oh people like you are mad seems like there is no hope at all for you.
thank you.

[Abusalaf]

STOLEN IDEA!
wow.... nice Syria Dabkeh... but the idea is sadly STOLEN from T-Mobile adverts in London airport and train stations.

It is 100% planed but looks so fake. Can Lebanese ever be creative?

see for your self in 2009:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=t-mobile+advert&aq=1

[serj jj]

look at all the haters who commented over here. ok we know most of them were part of the commercial, but a lot of people joined later on who had not rehearsed. Trust me this is the culture in lebanon, we just love to party and dance

[sam]

To all of you criticizing the clip for not being spontaneous, who cares? Flash mobs take place all the time and this is unique Lebanese take on it. The music is original, the dance is a traditional Lebanese one and the setting is in Lebanon. What more do you want? Looking at you "Kuwaiti Ahmed", not sure if I have seen any uniqueness or originality to EVER come out of Kuwait.

[Kuwaiti Ahmad]

Only a fool (or self-worshiping lebanese) would believe this video. Clearly this was pre planned, it was NOT spontaneous. I know the lebanese very well and they love to show off and take credit for false things such as this pre planned video.

[Devin]

1- it is an ad for Beirut Duty Free
2- it is stolen Check T-Mobile "Lifes for Sharing" Campaign
3- Gotta Love that Lebanese never respect copyrights laws!!!

[Lebanese in Dubai]

If you think this is "spontaneous", please give me a call, I have a magic potion to sell you.

[alanmirs]

For centauries through out the history the natives lived together dominated by majority rule in harmony, and they respected each others heritage, related to one another through intercourse, association, socializing and being part of it, as one family
Israel is not a Jewish state, and not because they are or not Jews but because they don’t belong to the environment and since the circumstances is not like the new world, they don’t understand the heritage, culture, and the history of the land

[Barry Brand]

Check out the final version here http://bit.ly/BeirutDutyFreeDance

[rolfen]

One must be retarded to believe this is spontaneous. It's definitely rehearsed, although some of the dancers might just have joined in later on.