Posted on May 19, 2007 - by dionysus

NYC Dance Parade

In 1926, at the height of Prohibition, the City of New York passed the cabaret laws in order to stop interracial dancing and “public lewdness.” To this end, the City established a cabaret law that limited dancing by more than three people to specifically licensed venues. These antiquated laws are still on the books and enforced, preventing New Yorkers from dancing to their favorite tunes, whether rocking out to their favorite live band or waltzing in an elegant ballroom to Strauss.

While he was mayor, Rudy Giuliani implemented his quality of life campaign which presumably was meant to make NYC a prettier, happier place to live. “Giuliani Time” caused a lot of bars and clubs to be fined or closed down. By 2002, of the 4,811 city venues with liquor licenses, only 276 were licensed cabarets where people were allowed to dance.

-J. Alexander Nixon

When NY organizers announced plans for a Dance Parade to rally against the needless and archaic City cabaret laws, the combined CoSM-28thday dance community was second to respond. With happy and hopeful comparison to Berlin’s famous Love Parade being thrown about, they figured it was a perfect time to demonstrate the maturity and professionalism of their productions with an elaborate entheocentric float, DJ, and psychedelic trance (“Ecstatic”) dancers.

At 10am the dancers will gather at CoSM for preparation. From there they will proceed to the parade starting line.

Starting at 1pm, the parade will start at 32nd Street and Broadway and proceed down to Union Square. It will then swing west to 5th Avenue, and conclude under the Memorial Arch in Washington Square Park.

4pm to 8pm, will see Washington Park turned into a polyphonic dance party on four stages.

Finally, from 8pm until 5am, the trance dancers move back to CoSM for May’s Entheocentric Salon.

linkage
• NYC Dance Parade
  

  Dance Parade is New York’s first ever parade and festival of such scope and scale. We are celebrating everything from Break dance to Ballet with Burning Man Spirit and Love Parade Energy. On Saturday May 19th 2007 we will join colorful floats, live bands and dj’s to dance in the streets to Salsa, Contra, Disco, Clogging, Ballroom, Irish Step, Hip Hop, Swing, Tango, Ballet, Break dance, Japanese, Sufi, Samba and more – over 49 forms demonstrating that Dance is a vibrant, expressive form of art.

• Dancing in the Streets to Highlight NY City Laws – metro
• a Deluge of Parades – villagevoice
• Metropolis In Motion – dance activists

UPDATE 5/27/07:
Here is 28thday photo and video footage from the Dance Parade:

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