As the subject of “Confessions of a Jumbotron Addict,” Ben Wheeler was unmasked as an obsessive Jumbotron dancer who believes he can alter the trajectories of basketball games. I called him to react to his rising stardom.
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I’m trying to square the difference between dancing on a stadium Jumbotron versus having this story out on the internet. How do the experiences compare?
To tell you the truth, there are a lot of similarities. The biggest is that in both situations, the audience is watching me while not dancing themselves. Everyone’s kind of thinking “What is this guy doing? Is he having a seizure?” And in both cases, I’m sticking way out in a way that’s both thrilling and vulnerable.
The film is amazing—I’m as proud of it as I could possibly be. But I always cringe a little bit watching it, because it’s me up there being a weirdo, sort of crossing my fingers and hoping that at the end of it all, I’ll belong.
You have a rich and varied professional life that’s very different from your life as a Jumbotron dancer. What’s the reaction been from friends and colleagues who know you outside of stadiums?
I’m not a super-extroverted, bouncing-around-the-room type of person in my daily life, so people are mostly flabbergasted, but in a wonderful way. They’ve said things like “I feel like I know you so much better now that I’ve seen that” and “I really understand more the full Ben Wheeler.” It’s been really fun.
In the film, we see someone that’s very uninhibited, hoping his actions give others permission to feel similar liberation. Before you became a Jumbotron dancer, were there people in your life that gave you that permission?
That’s a great question. I don’t think I’ve had mentors that have specifically helped me be uninhibited, but there have been a long string of people who encouraged my voice. I had an incredible writing teacher in high school named Joan Soble who had all her students write spiritual autobiographies. And there were some dance teachers in my area where I grew up, who put us on stage and taught us choreographed dances. It didn’t make me great at dancing, but it made me realize that I can actually do things if I really want to do them.
Being uninhibited doesn’t come easy to me at all—I actually think of myself, by default, as an inhibited person. I think that’s part of why this means so much to me, and I think it’s why my enthusiasm translates to other people. A lot of times, the best teachers are not necessarily native speakers of a language, but are people who’ve learned the language and have struggled through the parts that are hard for someone learning. I think this is all a reach for me, and that’s part of why it resonates.
My favorite review said that your “liberation outweighs and also redeems the cringe of your exhibitionism.” That’s a very funny sentence, but as I thought more about it, it’s probably also what I aspire to as an artist. What do you think of that review?
There are a lot of ways that art can inspire people. Masterful technique that feels nearly impossible, where you say “I can’t believe a human being did this” can be wonderful and inspiring. But there’s a different way art can be inspiring, where someone does something that’s saying “This is something we all have in us, and I’m showing you that we can all do this.”
Do you consider your Jumbotron dancing to be a form of performance art?
That’s so interesting. I’d never consciously thought of it as a form of performance art, but subconsciously I guess I do think of it in that way.
When I’m standing up and dancing, I’m not doing what I’d be doing if I was alone. It’s intended to be more like communication. When people cheer, they’re not cheering my skill—they’re feeling the enthusiasm and the energy, and their cheering cycles the energy back to me. That back & forth creates a collective experience, and performance art is all about that. So even though I haven’t consciously thought of it in that way, that makes a lot of sense.
The basketball playoffs are happening right now, and there’s a lot going on within crowds of the teams still competing. Is there a chance that there are versions of Ben Wheeler doing similar kinds of improvisational performance art in stadiums around the country?
Absolutely! In the film, I talk about some of the superstar fans that are always at Nets games. Every arena has them. The crowd gets to know them and gets excited when they get on the Jumbotron to do their schtick. And it’s not just a matter of yes, people are dancing and that can be a source of energy—I think there’s a collective creation of subtle cultural traditions and each arena has their own flavor.
Lastly, I’ve heard that you now bring your daughters to games with you- how do they react to your Jumbotron dancing?
I’ve always harbored a secret hope that my daughters will jump up and dance with me, but like any parent, I have to let go of the expectation that my kids are mini versions of me. These days, they get a kick out of it and act as good little cinematographers, taking video or photos of me when I get on the Jumbotron. I’m mostly happy to say that it doesn’t make them cower and hide their face, which is something they used to do.
