Nine years before the hugely popular Netflix drama “Stranger Things” brought Kate Bush back into the public limelight, a British theater troupe Shambush gathered 300 people to dance to the quirky singer’s 1978 music video “Wuthering Heights.”
Three years later, groups in other cities replicated that event. In Atlanta, Adult Swim TV executive Kim Manning used Facebook to organize a comparable event at Candler Park and was pleasantly surprised to see 75 people show up and replicate Bush’s mesmerizingly theatrical choreography, which is part mime, part interpretative dance and just a smidge Stevie Nicks.
Credit: CAMERON ADAMS/ AP (inset)
Credit: CAMERON ADAMS/ AP (inset)
Manning’s work is now immortalized on YouTube in an edited video with drone footage now seen nearly 200,000 times.
Courtesy of “Stranger Things,” Manning is bringing what is dubbed The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever back for Bush’s 64th birthday on Saturday, July 30 at 10 a.m. in the same Candler Park location. The event is free and open to all to participate or watch. The only stipulation is to wear something red with a black belt, comparable to Bush’s outfit in the original video.
“Be as Kate as you feel,” said Manning, 47. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a dress or not.”
At the inaugural event, she added, “we told people that even if they didn’t know the actual dance, they can just spin around. We didn’t need to be perfectly choreographed. It was more about the joy and fun and spirit of it.”
Dozens of similar events are scheduled in other cities around the world for that day, from Reno, Nevada, to Brisbane, Australia.
Bush until recently had more of a cult following in the United States. “Running Up That Hill,” from her fifth album “Hounds of Love,” has been her only top 40 hit domestically, peaking at No. 30 on the Billboard magazine Hot 100 chart in 1985. She was far more popular in the U.K. and Australia, where her debut single “Wuthering Heights,” based on the Emily Brontë novel, flew to No. 1 in 1978 but failed to crack the Hot 100 stateside.
For this season’s “Stranger Things,” creators the Duffer Brothers chose the emotively complex “Running Up That Hill” as a major plot device for one of its main characters Max Mayfield (portrayed by Sadie Sink), who used the song to salve her grief after her brother died the previous season. Its prominent placement in Netflix’s most watched TV series ever propelled the song back into Billboard’s Hot 100, where it landed in the top 5, as well as the top of the Billboard Global 200 for multiple weeks.
Manning, 47, said she vaguely recalls hearing “Running Up That Hill” as a kid but only became a fan in the 1990s while working at Georgia State University’s WRAS-FM while hosting a goth radio show “Happy House.” She remembers purchasing plenty of Bush DVDs at Tower Records in Buckhead and watching them religiously.
Two decades later, she organized The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever while recuperating from a broken leg following a rare bone disorder that made her bones unusually brittle. “It was a really scary time for me to dance at all,” she said. “I didn’t feel entirely stable and didn’t trust my body completely. But I overcame my fear and it worked out fine. I had no pain at all.”
More so, she said, “I’m by nature a shy, nerdy person. It’s so outside my box to do this.”
In fact, her college friend Kathleen Carr, a 45-year-old customer service account coordinator and fellow Bush acolyte, encouraged Manning to do the 2016 event, calling the initial 2013 version “the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen. I wanted Atlanta to be cool like other cities around the world. We expected maybe 10 or 15 of our friends to show up and when 75 did, it was shocking.”
Susan Holbrook Ridarick, a 59-year-old Brookhaven bookkeeper and musician, recalled seeing Bush on “Saturday Night Live” in 1978. “She blew me away,” Ridarick said. “It was like she came from a different planet. I fell in love with her.” At Auburn University, she sang Bush songs and happily spun her tunes on the college radio station as a deejay.
Given the opportunity to join The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever in 2016, Ridarick didn’t hesitate. “Her dancing is so expressive, so innocent,” she said. “But learning the choreography is trickier than you think because it isn’t traditional dance. It was just a young girl doing her first video.”
Ridarick created a detailed spreadsheet matching the lyrics to the steps. “It took me a few weeks to learn it,” she said. “After my husband would go to bed, I’d be in my pajamas practicing in the den.” She is rehearsing again and said she’ll be ready July 30 donning the same red dress she wore in 2016.
While a vast majority of the group in 2016 were women, Decatur residents Shannon Bradley-May, 50, and his husband John May, 51, were two men who took part. “It was very much a judgment-free zone,” Bradley-May said. “We practiced for two weeks leading up to the event. You’d think you’d get sick of the song, but it really sticks with you. Her voice is so ethereal. It became my favorite Kate Bush song.”
Manning is thrilled that the Netflix drama exposed Bush to an entirely new audience. “It was really a cool way they used the song,” she said. “I think the idea that music can save people and pull them out of dark places rings true.”
Coming out of the pandemic, Manning is looking forward to doing the “Wuthering Heights” dance again on the Candler Park grass, even if it will likely be hot and humid. She wouldn’t be surprised if turnout surpasses the 2016 event.
“There’s a catharsis doing something silly again with a big group,” she said.
In 2016, they ended by running down a hill. This time, they may run up that hill instead.
WHERE TO WATCH OR PARTICIPATE
The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever
10 a.m. Saturday, July 30. Free to watch or participate. Candler Park in the field between the basketball court and Candler Park pool, 500 McLendon Ave. NE, Atlanta. wutheringatl22.eventbrite.com.
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