Famous Ankles

To start my second post on the 2008 Dance Parade, I want to present the bravest and most determined person in the parade. A very vigorous dancer, and a very good one, too.  Her act of bravery and determination?  She danced in high heels. A woman next to me basically gasped when she saw it and kept saying that the dancer was going to cripple herself by the end of the parade. I sure hope she didn’t. I honestly don’t know how she kept it up, though. She would have danced a mile at this point. Maybe she joined in really late and then dropped out after a couple of blocks. Anyway, she was great.  (Her dance style was more than just a little shake while walking around as she was most definitely doing some little moves and bumps and the like.  But at least she wasn’t leaping around.)

Our heroic/foolish/dancaholic woman was followed by a flamenco style dancer that I also enjoyed.

And she was followed by a swing group that was very vigorous on their own.  Nicely done, folks.

This group called themselves Dance Manhattan. Once again, I simply couldn’t capture the energy.

And the stilt dancers! Yeah, they were dancing. Not throwing each other around, but they were certainly dancing on their stilts.

The woman below was a favorite of mine. Really very much in the shimmy/shake kind of style. Very, very fun to watch. And a great person for the pose.

This next part was really nice. The man was dancing with the woman to the left and then the other woman, who was much lower energy, was just swirled into the dance. The first woman broke off and started dancing with others and the man and the smaller woman started into their own dance. Just one of those little vignettes that you wonder if it was planned or the smaller woman finally allowed the others to cajole her into the activity, or whatever. Not anything of consequence, but just a little bit of something else in the mix. Maybe. Incidentally, this was the Gotham Swing Club.

This next group, Zydeco Messenger was perhaps the oddest group in the parade. I really liked the music, but that’s the key. Although they danced, the whole point of this group was the music, not the dance. That’s not true of any other group in the whole parade.

This group had no announced name…I think. There was a car at the front with some small letter saying Yehoodi. It may have been the group or the sponsor, or the driver’s name who wants to make sure he gets in the right car every day. But the dancers were great. The blonde was the most eye-catching.

Some more dancers. I think they were still associated with the Yehoodi group.

This next group had two things of real note. Look at that little girl on stilts. Unreal. She always had an adult very near and very ready to catch her, but she was doing it all on her own. I can’t imagine she had done the whole parade to this point on the stilts, but she was going on pretty steadily.

She and the next bunch of people were associated with a group called “MetropolisInMotion.org” that had lots and lots of signs saying “Legalize Dancing”. I looked at their website and they complain that NYC’s caberet laws prohibit/limit dancing. Okay. But there’s an entire Dance Parade. NYC’s clubs are renowned for the dancing. But according to the group, dancing is a crime in NYC.

In that case, lots of criminal activity on the Saturday afternoon streets of NYC.

More dancing criminals. I imagine it was hard for the cops to keep their weapons holstered.

But it was a fun group and they really did dance up a (criminal) storm.

I don’t know what her style was, but that’s a jail cage on the float behind her.

Dancing women in chains.

Roller Boogie anyone? It’s Sisters in Motion! The oddest part about this group was that the first part of it were mostly male.  It’s a strange thing when I think about it.  I was more intrigued by the misnaming of the group (or at least the fact that the “Sisters” included men rather than the fact that everyone was wearing roller skates.  I guess it’s easier for me to transport back to 1978.)

More Sisters in Motion.

Hula hoops were a popular part of the parade. Yeah, hula hoops. It makes me think about buying stock in Whammo or whatever. I saw them in several separate sections of the parade so maybe they’re making one of their periodic comebacks.

All I know about this group is the name “Peter Munch” on the float. It really didn’t strike a chord with me and I just have virtually no memory of their being around other than they were passing out some sort of flyers that I refused.

This next guy had the whole block all to himself. And he carried it off well.

This group was called “Music in Motion”. They were good, but nothing special. And then something drew them over to my side of the street and they started to put on some sort of dance exhibition. I didn’t know what was going on.

Here you can see them all looking over to my side of the street. They really started to do some dancing. I was delighted at the display, but didn’t have a clue as to the cause.

And then I looked to my left. Well, they had something of a competitor/friend who was apparently doing some sort of a dance challenge on them. This may be the best picture I got the whole day.

-H

Oddly enough, or perhaps it is to be expected, NYC has a parade dedicated just to dance. Take your pick of the dance style. I didn’t note any minuet, but I think I saw variations on just about everything else. Well, come to think of it; no square dance section, either. Man! I wuz robbed!

The parade had perhaps the weirdest route I’ve ever seen for a parade. It started up on 31st Street heading south on Broadway; then it cut over to University (just north of Union Square); and then hung a left on 8th Street to end in Tompkins Square Park. Well, at least that’s what I heard. I stayed around 10th and University for the whole parade. And it did last quite a while. I think I’m gonna get about three posts from it.

And, now, on with the first post.

The parade started at 1pm, but we didn’t see anything in the Village where I was standing until about 1:40. They may dance hard, but they parade slow.

The parade was eclectic to say the least. It had a lot of international dance, but it seemed mostly to consist of dance companies. And not a single marching band! Not one! Where was Mother Cabrini’s? Where was a dancing marching band? Nevertheless, it was a highly enjoyable parade and the dancers were almost all having a grand time entertaining us and each other.

First up, some sort of Caribbean dancers.  Or were they just belly dancers?  Caribbean belly dancers?

But to be honest, the real stars of this group were the musicians. The dancers were fine; the musicians were great.

The musicians were followed by more dancers, whom I presume were associated with the music. I don’t know it, but I’m guessing. This parade was actually pretty bad in detailing who was who. The two dancers at the back of the below photo were actually very, very good. I thought I had a better picture of them, but no go…

Then a group called Pure followed. A really nice little show where they did mostly, I guess, what is considered an interpretive dance of some sort.

Looking at the picture below, all I can think of is how it’d look from a June Taylor dance perspective. (For those of you who aren’t old fogeys, that’s a group that would dance on the Jackie Gleason show and their gimmick was the filming of the group from above.)

A group called ASAmed followed. Well, they did. I think the picture below was part of their group, but the formal group follows in the next picture. The group was middle eastern and was primarily more in the belly dancing style.  (CORRECTION:  reader Debbie Lakis sent in a comment that the below group is called “Manhattan Tribal”.  Thanks!)

Here’s the ASAmed group, at least where they were clearly identified. I really regret that my photos don’t capture the actual movement of the dancers. When you see the dancers with their hands out, don’t even think they were posing. These ladies were dancing up a storm.

All I can say about the below picture is that this dancer was following a Mexican float/bus of some sort. I cannot place the outfit into any sort of mental category in my head.

I really loved the Korean Institute of NY’s display. They actually had a number of dancers and everyone was about as colorful as you could hope for. The picture below captures my best moment of watching them. In the others, they are a lot more scattered and you can’t really catch the movement and the impact. Or, at least I can’t.

This was a group of Polish dancers. Probably. They had a flag that I think was the Polish flag (red and black, double-headed eagle).

Here’s the start of what I considered the best part of the parade (out of a pretty good parade). The Bolivian dancers were intent. Wow, oh wow; they were intent! The young lady at the center of the picture was utterly consumed with the passion of her dancing. It was almost scary. They stopped for a moment and all of the ladies crouched (well, there were some guys, too). Then, all at once they popped up and started dancing again. And this young lady wasn’t going to let anything make her miss her cue. It was just the look in her eye and the way she just wouldn’t let up glancing at the others to make sure that she and they were all in sync. Very fun, at least for me.

And it was fun for this woman, too. She just had the biggest smile.

The more “interpretive” or modern or contemporary or whatever-ya-wanna-call-it style then seemed to take over. I never again saw the passion and the communal action that the Bolivians had. The rest was fine, but perhaps just a little too laid back to stand close comparison with the Bolivians. The next picture was of a group called “Contemporary Dance Theatre”. They were way too laid back to follow up on the Bolivians. And they either knew it and didn’t try or they thought they were too cool to be as energetic. This is one of the few moments that they were dancing when they walked by me. That isn’t to say they weren’t big on dancing in other places; all I’m saying is that you couldn’t prove it from what I saw.

The East Village Dance Project followed. They had some interesting stuff, but there was still something of a vacuum from the passing of the Bolivians. Of course, these were mostly kids and probably shouldn’t be compared to the others, anyway.

Now, the Neville Dance Theatre did start to bring back some life. They weren’t as numerous or as passionate as the Bolivians, but they were very, very good.

As you might expect, I did enjoy the moments above and below. The dancers were having fun and enjoyed having their pictures taken. Thank you.

The Amy Marshall Dance Company was pretty good. I got a number of shots of them, but I just don’t think I captured their energy. In the picture below, you can see some of the high kicking going on in the background, but it was a bit spread too out for me to really capture.

A lot of the dancers were very young and were very bendable.

The next group that came was, I think, something about “Luigi’s Jazz”. At least, that’s what was on the back of the guy in the stilts. Maybe that’s Luigi in the back of the car. No other sign of who they were.

That’s the end of my first post on the parade (I think it may end up as three posts). There were a bunch of great moments during the parade and I hope to point out the rest of them. It was a nice day and a nice parade with some good music and no really bad music. There were a lot of dancers out there to strut their stuff and a number of oddballs who wanted to show how odd they were. There were even, strange as it seems, some political aspects to the parade, but not in the manner you might think. I’ll cover it in tomorrow’s post, but I honestly don’t know if they were just pulling a scam (probably) or making a point (seemingly a really minor point, if so).

But you have to wait to see that.

-H.