At one point, an older man in the audience, clearly moved by the music, got up and began to dance. The venue was packed, but he found a small pocket of space near the stage and surrendered to the rhythm, visibly in a trance. This was a concert at Harbourfront. Keyboards, electronics, and sequencers. In-between his pieces, composer John Kameel Farrah called our attention to injustice and encouraged people to read all sides and stand up to oppression and bring pots and pans to show solidarity.

For me, the old man dancing added something vital to the show, watching him lose himself in movement was what I enjoyed most, shaking his booty with more abandon than the mechanical drum loops even if they were complex meters. Then came security, and a Harbourfront staff member. They intervened and halted the dancer. The crowd understood what was happening. Soon chants of “Let him dance!” rose up from the audience. My friend who is a big fan of John’s and a dancer herself especially yelling loudly to support the old guy. John finished the track he was playing, then paused to take in the scene, the chanting crowd, the old man, the security. Into the mic, he said something like: “I’m going to give them a second,” then dove into his next song. It’s not easy to make a decision when three hundred people are watching you. I get it. But I wish he’d realized the power he held, it was his show, his stage, his microphone.

With a single sentence, he could have stopped security and let the guy keep dancing. Instead, he chose to stay silent and let things play out. Which, I suppose, is also a kind of statement. Just not the one I was hoping for.