Dancing Naked in Harvard Square

SJC ruling's bad nudes for naked dancer
By Laurel J. Sweet | Friday, April 11, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Local Coverage

The naked truth has caught up to a free spirit who thought she had shed a 2005 felony charge of open and gross lewdness.

Dancing nude in Harvard Square to protest the commercialization of Christmas is not a constitutionally protected act of self-expression, the Supreme Judicial Court ruled yesterday.

The court reinstated the June 2005 lewdness charge against Ria Ora, saying her behavior was a potentially frightening and intimidating assault on the public's eyes.

"Every person has a legitimate right to express themselves as long as they do so within the law and in a way that does not infringe on the rights of the public, particularly our children," said Corey Welford, spokesman for Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone Jr.

The case, which had been dismissed by Cambridge District Court Judge Severlin B. Singleton III, will now proceed to trial.

"For her to be subject to a felony for what she did is kind of scary," said Ora's defense attorney, Daniel Beck.

The Herald was unable to reach the street-corner stripper, whose MySpace [website].com profile lists her as 31, of Cambridge, and a member of the Boston Society of Spontaneity, "a group of mostly strangers who get together for organized weirdness in public."

Beck said the summer Christmas backlash was an annual event. He was not certain who was behind it.

"It obviously got attention," he said.

Judge Singleton was of the opinion that the state's law against lascivious behavior - punishable by up to three years in state prison - violates the First Amendment because it is a "blanket prohibition against public nudity."

But the SJC found such a law is necessary to deter birthday-suit abusers from shocking "unsuspecting or unwilling persons, particularly children."

Asked what point Ora was trying to make about crass commercialization by taking off her clothes, Beck said, "I don't know, quite frankly."
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