After having spent a lifetime looking at ourselves in the mirror, constantly appraising, who of us wouldn’t want to take a dance class in the dark? Two Australian dance students, Alice Glenn and Heidi Barrett, had the same thought in 2009 when they founded No Lights No Lycra, a global dance community that offers dancers and nondancers alike the chance to get their groove on in a dark space, where there’s no light, no Lycra, no technique, no teacher and no steps to learn. It’s just a place to lose yourself in the music and find your own dance mojo. The event became so popular that it spread past its Melbourne beginnings, first throughout Australia and now, globally.

Photo by Paul Philipson

If you’ve offered beginner dance classes for adults at your studio, you understand the reluctance of so many to shake their groove thing in front of others. Which is probably a large part of why NLNL is so popular—events are now offered in Europe and the U.S., although currently only in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Los Angeles. (And if you’re interested in starting one up where you live—or if you have someone else in mind who might be—NLNL offers guidelines on how to do that.)