At The Apple Harvest, Some Wait, Some Dance In The Streets

TheLAB dancers PHILIP THIBODEAU PHOTOS

This past Saturday downtown Southington was filled with people in various degrees of motion. Some inched patiently along while waiting for apple fritters in a line that started near the booths for the Democratic and Republican candidates --

-- and ended two blocks later at Zion Lutheran’s busy tent:

Thousands more moved up and down the side streets at a measured pace as they tried to decide among lobster rolls, fried dough, kielbasa, "tots, brats, and hots," and dozens of other food choices:

Yet there was one place where people were moving fast. In the middle of the afternoon, performers from TheLAB took to the stage next to the town green. TheLAB is a Cheshire-based dance academy that specializes in various kinds of modern dance, including hip-hop, Latin fusion, and street jazz. The director of the school, Gerald Lovelace, shown here with his instructors, emceed a show that got performers and spectators all moving together.

Initially the dancers kept to the stage:

But later the energy shifted to the street. There Lovelace taught his students, along with any spectators who wished to join, a short, dynamic routine:

At that point the group began moving around the green with Lovelace as their Pied Piper, stopping occasionally to repeat the routine. Eventually they made it to Main Street, skipping along near the fritter line while moving from one dance to the next:

TheLAB’s street-dance experiment grabbed the crowd’s attention and added to the festive atmosphere, just as Apple Harvest organizer, Melissa Cocuzza (shown here on the left with her fellow organizers Bob and Barbara Paré), had hoped they would:

Thus fritter-fans, food tasters, and street dancers all got the thrill they were looking for.

Yet perhaps no one who attended Saturday was as thrilled as one young boy who chanced upon his favorite Pokémon character, Pikachu, while walking down Center Street: