The crowds of young hipsters were packed in to the rafters at the Mason Temple in Fort Greene last night. They had come for a screening of Girl Walk // All Day, an epic musical across New York City, which was having its debut as a dance party thrown in partnership with their crowd funding platform, Kickstarter.
“This project launched back in January hoping to raise $5,000 and ended up with four times that,” Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler said, grabbing the microphone onstage. “The shooting took place all around the city, often illegally.” The crowd roared its appreciation. “This is the part where they tell you to turn off your cell phones and stay quiet, but that’s not quiet how we do things. Let’s Instagram the hell out of this and dance our asses off.”
Betabeat grabbed a beer and swung by the Kickstarter merch table. We got a fist bump from Aviary’s Michael Galpert, who was preparing to sweat it out. Was there any other tech scene in the world where the visuals are brought to you by the Joshua Light Show? It was that unique combination of art and science that Silicon Alley seems to specialize in. Expect more in the future, with Kickstarter hiring a full time film maker (along with Ruby engineers and data scientists, natch).
A few more photos from last night:
