‘Lady Gaga’ visits Hillman Library

When “Lady Gaga” began dancing on a table in Hillman Library last night, dozens of students… When “Lady Gaga” began dancing on a table in Hillman Library last night, dozens of students joined, while others complained and moved their books.

“Lady Gaga,” or to be more accurate, the pink-wig-donning, lingerie-clad Pitt student impersonating the pop diva, strutted into the main room on the first floor of the library shortly after 10 last night.

Surrounded by a crowd of students and several Pitt police officers, the Lady Gaga impersonator, who declined to give her name for fear of punishment by the University, hoisted herself on top of a table where two students were studying.

She was one member of a small group of students who organized a flash mob in the library last night, two nights before Fall finals officially end. A flash mob is a group of people who meet to perform in public, surprising onlookers.

Students began crowding the library shortly before 10 p.m. News of a Facebook event advertising a flash mob to the tune of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” had circulated around campus for two days. More than 800 people said they’d attend.

But no one was sure whether it would actually occur.

The event told students to arrive at the library around 9:50 p.m. and begin milling around, as if they were there to study. But at 9:50 p.m., about half a dozen Pitt police officers were patrolling throughout the library.

“If you’re not here to study, you need to leave,” one Pitt police officer, wearing a bright yellow jacket with bold, black “Police” letters, told the crowd.

Some students left, but many chose to mill around other parts of the library. As the officers approached them, they moved to other areas of the library, resulting in a slow-motion cat-and-mouse game.

Some students stood near bookshelves, pretending to look at books as the officers approached them. Others actually studied.

“Shut the f*ck up! People are trying to study! Lady Gaga blows!” one person yelled.

10 p.m. came and there was no sign of music.

10:01 – Still no sign of music.

10:02 – Clap. Clap. Clap. The pace picks up as more students join in and then … “Oh-oh-oh-oooh / Caught in a bad romance / Caught in a bad romance.”

About 100 students began jumping up and down as if they were part of a mosh pit. Several people in the crowd pulled out their cameras. Students who had gathered in the hallway connecting the two sides of the library parted.

A 5-foot-1 Asian woman in black leggings, a black bra and corset, 5-inch stilettos and blonde-and-pink wig walked through the crowd, stepped on top of a table where two people were studying, and began dancing.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” she said later that night. “I can’t really emulate Lady Gaga. She’s just too much of a freak. I wish I could be her.”

The dancing continued for a few minutes.

Sam, who organized the event and declined to give his last name for fear of punishment by the University, held a speaker on the second-floor balcony but dropped it and moved when the police officers came. It didn’t make much difference. The music was quiet, hard to hear from a few feet away, let alone on the first floor.

About 50 students danced through “Bad Romance,” while about 200 students looked on. Police escorted one man who had been crowd-surfing away from the dance fest after he almost fell.

When the song ended, some students began cheering, “P-I-T-T. Let’s go Pitt!” and then singing “Sweet Caroline,” a favorite from football season. “Lady Gaga” left the room. It wasn’t her style of music, she said.

But she came back when Sam followed up with “Poker Face.”

The crowd dwindled, but still consisted of dozens of dancing students, and some disgusted onlookers.

“This is obviously not one of the better flash mob efforts in college history,” the Lady Gaga impersonator said, noting that more students watched than danced and that the speakers weren’t loud enough to carry the music throughout the library. “But it was a valiant effort,” she said.

Senior Krystal Harwick said she thought the flash mob “was idiotic, pointless, disrespectful and completely f*cking inappropriate. I understand it was a fun idea. I get it,” she said, adding that she would have supported the flash mob if it had been held outside or on a Friday.

“I’m still thrown off and trying to get back into my study zone,” she said after most of the crowd had left the area.

Harwick said she received the Facebook invitation to the dance event but “hoped it wasn’t going to happen” when she saw the police officers passing through the building.

She said she felt angry because tables in Hillman were a “hot commodity,” and she had a final at 8 a.m. the next day.

“Lady Gaga” and Sam also had 8 a.m. finals. They said they weren’t concerned.

“I’m so glad I’m not arrested,” “Lady Gaga” said when she stopped by The Pitt News office. “They would have arrested me first. I was dancing on a table with stilettos.”

Sam said he went to the library around 9 p.m. so he could get a spot near an outlet for the speakers.

The police presence, he said, was “kind of upsetting.” As the officers patrolled the library, he said, he grabbed a table and pretended to study. When the officers left the area where he was sitting he realized he had a decision to make. “I just pressed play,” he said, “and miraculously, people responded and started to dance.”

Sam said he hopes there will be an encore next Fall and that he and his friends will learn from the weaknesses of this year’s flash mob.

But that was a plan he would work on another night. Around 11:30 p.m., Sam and “Lady Gaga” went back to Hillman Library — this time to study.

Copy editor Joe Kennedy contributed to this report.