Atlanta's most Wuthering Heights day EVER

? This Saturday, July 16, out on the wiley, windy moors of Candler Park, hundreds of Kate Bush admirers will gather to re-enact the music video for her classic single “Wuthering Heights.” Attendees are encouraged to dress “as Kate as they feel” (in a red dress, black belt, green eyeshadow, the works) and to arrive early to practice the steps to the video’s whimsical, free form dance routine. However, it is by no means necessary for participants to master the choreography. “It’s like a lot of goofy faces and spinning around, it doesn’t really matter if you know the dance,” says Kim Manning, one of the event’s coordinators. “We’ll call out the moves as we go, so people really shouldn’t be intimidated by needing to practice or really knowing it well, unless that’s what they’re into.”

 ??  ??  ??
The idea of gathering to blissfully dance to the chart-topping pop standard is something that Bush fans across the globe seem to be into. Shambush, a performance collective in the UK, hosted the original event in 2013. The video of their re-enactment went viral, inspiring fans around the globe to host similar events in their own cities. After sharing the video on her Facebook page, Manning decided to organize an Atlanta chapter of the movement with a couple of old friends. “I was a DJ at Album 88 in 1999, and I discovered her when I was there,” she says. “I did a goth radio show, and the two girls that I did it with are doing this with me, they really helped get it all together. We played a lot of Kate Bush, we’re really into her.”  ??
 ??
 ?? According to the Facebook event page, cities in Germany, Sweden, The UK, Australia, and many more will join Atlanta in re-enacting the video on the sixteenth. “I had initially scheduled it on July 30th, because that was Kate Bush’s birthday and it was Emily Bronte’s birthday. We moved ours to the sixteenth to be part of this international movement,” Manning says. “There’s been a lot of coordination between the international cities, actually. There’s an organizer’s group over email where we talk about how to get it set up.”  ??
 ?? Like the original, the Atlanta re-enactment will be filmed, but that shouldn’t deter camera-shy Bush fans from attending. “We’ll make sure nobody is filmed who doesn’t want to be, but it’s just for prosterity, so that we have it,” Manning says. At the end of the day, the goal of the event is to revel in the experience itself. “I think it looks so fun, it’s such a silly thing to do, but there’s still some integrity there when it’s Kate Bush and it’s not like ‘The Macarena,’ you know?” Manning says. “Spinning around in a park in a red dress just looks really silly and fun. I don’t know exactly what it’s tapped into, but I do know there’s a lot of people who are really excited about it. It just makes me smile to think about.”  ??
 ?? Practice for the video will begin at 9:30 a.m., and the re-enactment will take place at 10 a.m. in Candler Park. Check out the Facebook event  for more details.?