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It might have been some strange daytime disco event or it might have been a red-carpet movie premiere. It was hard to tell on Tuesday afternoon in Bryant Park.

An actress in white patent stilettos posed on a red carpet as cameras surrounded her. Flanked by four male dancers who mimicked her every vamping move, she smiled and swung her hips for flash after flash as the 1977 Bee Gees staple “Stayin’ Alive” played in the background.

An onlooker might not have guessed that there was a more serious purpose to all this. The actress, Jennifer Coolidge, perhaps best known as the sultry mother in “American Pie,” was helping promote that most basic of lifesaving techniques, cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Many of the people snapping photos were workers, interns or volunteers for American Heart Association affiliates. And the red carpet was really a mat where about 40 volunteers were about to pummel the chests of plastic dummies to the can’t-get-it-out-of-your-head beat of “Stayin’ Alive.”

To most people, the song calls to mind John Travolta strutting down a Brooklyn street in “Saturday Night Fever.” But the heart association wants to give it another purpose: helping keep someone alive. At 103 beats a minute, its tempo almost perfectly matches the recommended rate for performing hands-only CPR — 100 chest compressions per minute with no mouth-to-mouth resuscitation necessary.

The American Heart Association says that hands-only CPR can be a simpler, more comfortable alternative to the conventional procedure, which involves hand compression and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

A D.J. turned up the music. A dozen dancers in wigs and loose white suits strutted in place, with gold-color necklaces that read “CPR” dangling from their necks.

“Ah, ha, ha, ha, stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive,” the Bee Gees yelped. With every beat, the kneeling figures on the red mat pressed down on the inflated torsos, their arms straight and their hands layered one on top of the other.

The demonstration was intended to prove just how easy CPR can be.

In fact, according to the heart association, anyone can save a life simply by calling 911 and performing regular, forceful compressions in the center of the patient’s chest. (A slightly different technique is recommended for children.) Studies have shown that hands-only CPR can be as effective as conventional CPR, which combines mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with compressions. Both types can double or even triple survival rates if CPR begins in the first few minutes after a heart attack.

Nearly 400,000 Americans experience heart attacks outside a hospital every year, and almost 90 percent die, said Dr. Gordon Tomaselli, the president of the American Heart Association. If more people understood that they could perform CPR without much training — and without using mouth-to-mouth — the survival rate would rise significantly, he said.

“People’s main concern is that you’d hurt the person, but the guy’s already dead,” said Dr. Alson Inaba, a pediatrician and a professor at the University of Hawaii, whom the heart association credits with first using “Stayin’ Alive” to teach CPR. (He said he dreamed up the technique while flying home from a heart association conference in 2005.)

“Just push hard and fast and sing ‘Stayin’ Alive,’ ” instructed Dr. Inaba, who was at Bryant Park. “That’s it.”

Ms. Coolidge, who is known for playing clumsy, sometimes ditsy characters, like Paulette, the manicurist in “Legally Blonde,” said the heart association probably chose her for the campaign because even “people who are incapable like myself can do CPR.”

“But I did learn CPR,” she said. “The key is to not be intimidated.”