How many times in your life have you spontaneously danced in public and for the camera?

We're guessing not too many.

And in Yishun, in the dead of night?

You've probably never even dreamed of that being a sensible thing to do.

It was for this guy, though.

Yishun Ave 4

For reasons that would completely elude a random passerby, a man is seen in a video dancing around Yishun.

Also seen in the video: A bus stop, the divider of a small road, the vicinity of HDB blocks 665, 666 and 666A, a random pavilion, and even more aptly for the area, a random ofo bike.

This would place the video at Yishun Avenue 4.

The video was re-uploaded on Dec. 2 with the caption "joyful man happy dance all over cursed yishun estate", and has garnered over 300 shares.

The "Budot" dance

But more curiously, did his dance mean anything? Why was he dancing?

We were dying to find out.

Commentators speculated that maybe he was mad (or normal, depending on which side you stand on Yishun), or just doing a happy jig knowing that he was in Singapore's most infamous neighbourhood.

Interestingly, it wasn't as random -- or mad -- at all.  Some commenters mentioned the term "budot", which sent us digging.

A real dance

Sure enough, budot is an actual style of dance that went somewhat viral and has left a widespread cultural impression in the Philippines.

Loosely based on traditional Badjao (a local ethnic tribe) dance, slight gyrating, swaying movements are combined with a backing techno or electronic dance music soundtrack.

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And so, we finally found it

The original video (of the guy dancing in Yishun), we've found, was uploaded by YouTube user Rybaxs on Nov. 10.

His channel links to the Facebook profile of a person going by the name Ryan Job Cosinero Babiera, who also commented on the re-uploaded video with a link to his original video.

You can see his comment, written in Tagalog here:

The story gets heavy real quick, though

And here, of course, is Babiera's original video:

And if you thought the dance was intriguing, Babiera's caption accompanying his video is even more befuddling.

It reveals two things, one that is entirely unsurprising and another that, well, is —

1. He lost his wallet in Yishun, and the neighbourhood police had closed his case, and
2. the guy's seemingly random jig has a tragic aspect to it — as it turns out, according to him, it's a tribute to a friend's friend who died in the recent Marawi conflict.

"Yishun Budots dance.. After I lost my wallet at Yishun, then NPC closed my case : ( I got no choice but to dance while going home, not because i lost my mind, I'm dancing because that was the time Marawi war ended. Too much problem in the world plus stress at work will add up,even you tried to be a hero at work, it is not that easy... this dance is dedicated to my friend's friend who fought & killed at Marawi's war .. RIP Sgt. Miguelito A. Abao PN (M) Philippine Marines, one of the real heroes."

We've reached out to Babiera for comment. Whatever his reason might be, we're sure his dance cheered him up.

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Top image via Rybaxs' YouTube video