Gather ‘round, my friends, crank the bass. For I shall spin, and to the richness of this backbeat I shall also spin for you a story. A tale of love and woe. A tale of man and woman, and the freshness that they provide for one another when they get down.

It is a tale of love, but it is not a love story. It is a tale of war, but it is not a war story. It is a story of Dance Dance Revolution. It is The Dance Dance Story, and at many points in my tale this entire mall full of people will form up into lines and dance a choreographed number while snapping their fingers.

But I will take it now from the top, as these things are meant to be taken.

It was nearly three years ago that The Revolutionary came. The man could dance, and dance he did. I saw with my own eyes, saw it! Saw him disappear into his own pants while executing a surprise knee-drop during Love this Feeling from DDR 2nd Mix. Then, from out of his fly, a hand emerged to lift his body into the air, and his two feet Matrix-Walked across the screen. I tell you the truth. The Revolutionary came and changed us forever. And he disappeared, back the way he came, to places unknown in a haze of smoke and glowsticks.

I will pause the music -- just for a moment -- in deference to THE MASTAH. And now the beatz will continue.

Soon they filled the arcades, his children and mine. They shuffled their feet, they turned to the beat. Third mix, fourth mix, fifth mix ... The people danced shoulder to shoulder, week after week, month after month. Soon another arcade opened in the mall, so that there were two, TWO places for the children to dance.

One on the East side of the Mall.
One on the West side.

And soon there was no love, no love for the brothas and sistahs on the East side for the brothas and sistahs on the West side. They formed teams to dance against one another. Team ShakaBooty rocked the East, and team ManyMojo raised the roof out west.

Sometimes they would meet in the middle, in the food court, next to the Whattapretzel. And down would slam the metal grating on the windows, and the Gap shoppers, they’d run, because they knew what was coming next. Because they were gonna get all hardcore. And they were gonna FUNK IT UP. And woe to anyone who stood between ManyMojo and ShakaBooty when it all went down. That’s the word. And the word is law.

Against this backdrop of beatz and beatdownz, my story begins.

[Tomorrow: Part II of Dance Dance Story.]