Street Dancing Man

Meet Mike Long: musician, 1" button entrepreneur, "social rocktivist" and public dancer.

Mike only discovered he could dance six months ago and, soon after, started posting videos of his sweet moves on the internet. In the two days following his first YouTube post, he received over 100 emails from fans (and haters) and a star was born.

Public dancing is now Mike's full-time summer job—he accepts donations and has sponsorship from Larabar, a company that makes healthy vegan bars. For the last month, he has been filming his dance antics with the iSight camera on his MacBook in public spaces around Toronto, Montreal and Hamilton (available here). In August, he's taking his craft on tour through Europe, though his bio states that it is his ultimate dream to dance to “Walk Like an Egyptian” in front of the pyramids.

We asked Mike where his favourite place to dance is in Toronto. "The subway. My favourite comment was from a teenage girl who asked, "Are you a B-boy?"

But more importantly, who would win in a dance battle, him or Ellen? "She does, because she gets paid a lot of money to do it. I am a way better dancer, and I've only been doing it for a few months. I'd like to be on Ellen just so my mom doesn't keep asking me what I'm going to do for a living. This, mom. This is what I do."