New York City’s Dance Parade 2024 is a parade and dance festival that gets over 10,000 New Yorkers dancing in the street to over 100 different styles of dance. The Parade leads to DanceFest in Tompkins Square Park.
18th Dance Parade 2024
The 18th Dance Parade NYC 2024 dances from Sixth Avenue at 17th St in Chelsea, Manhattan; to DanceFest at Tompkins Square Park in the East Village; on Saturday, May 18, 2024. Dance Parade from 12noon – 3pm. DanceFest from 3-7pm. FREE.
- North American 🇺🇸 🇲🇽
- Caribbean 🇨🇺 🇩🇴 🇭🇹 🇯🇲 🇵🇷 🇹🇹
- South American 🇧🇴 🇧🇷 🇨🇴 🇵🇪
- African 🇨🇩 🇨🇬 🇪🇬
- European 🏴 🇪🇸
- Asian 🇰🇭 🇨🇳 🇭🇰 🇮🇳 🇯🇵 🇰🇷 🇲🇴 🇹🇼 🇸🇬 🇹🇭
The Parade Lineup of dancing groups is at danceparade.org
Watching the Parade is free, but Grand Stand seats are available for purchase for $44 at eventbrite.com
Dances
There are so many Bolivian caporales groups that you might think half of New York City is Bolivian, but the dancers actually come from the entire East Coast. There are probably some dances here that you never heard of. Isn’t diversity wonderful?
American Dances
- African American afro, break, cheer, club, disco, drill, hip hop, house, hustle, jazz, jookin, majorette, stomp, street, swing, tap, vogue 🇺🇸
- American aerobics, ballroom, contemporary, hula hoop, modern, roller, urban 🇺🇸
Caribbean Dances
- Afro-Caribbean
- Cuban conga, salsa 🇨🇺
- Dominican bachata, carnival lechónes de Santiago, folk, merengue 🇩🇴
- Haitian folkloric 🇭🇹
- Jamaican dancehall, and reggae 🇯🇲
- Puerto Rican freestyle, salsa, vogue 🇵🇷
- Trinidadian soca 🇹🇹
Latin American Dances
African Dances
- African afrobeat, Congolese folkloric 🇨🇩 🇨🇬
- Arab bellydance 🇪🇬
European Dances
- Scottish highland 🏴
- Spanish flamenco 🇪🇸
- Slavic folkloric
Asian and Pacific Dances
- Cambodian Khmer classical 🇰🇭
- Chinese folkloric, jazz 🇨🇳 🇹🇼 🇭🇰 🇸🇬 🇲🇴
- Indian classical, folk and bollywood 🇮🇳
- Japanese yosakoi 🇯🇵
- Korean kpop 🇰🇷
- Thai classical 🇹🇭
Pacific Dances
- Hawaiian hula
- Tahitian ori
Grand Marshals
- Brenda Bufalino, tap dancer. @brenda.bufalino
- Charles “Lil Buck” Riley, jookin’ dancer. Jookin’ is an African American street dance from 1980s Memphis, Tennessee. @artoflilbuck 🇺🇸
- Martha Zarata-Alvarez, Mexican folklórico dancer and teaching artist. @marthazaratealvarez 🇲🇽
- Norman Siegel civil rights attorney, former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
Dance Parade Route
- Sixth Avenue at 17th St in Chelsea, into Greenwich Village
- 8th St, past the Grand Stand in Astor Place Plaza, on to St. Mark’s Place in the East Village
- Tompkins Square Park in the East Village
DanceFest
DanceFest in Tompkins Square Park is a dance showcase with multiple stages, vendor dance tents, site specific performances, and more. There is a Main Stage, Community Stage, Teaching Stage, and Social Stage.
More DanceFest information, including groups and performance times, is at danceparade.org
Dance Parade After Party
If you can’t stop dancing, there is official Dance Parade After Party with KS360, Misbehaviour and Liquid Todd spinning the decks at Radio Nublu (Nublu Classic) at 62 Avenue C, between 4th & 5th St, in Manhattan’s East Village; with 8pm doors. $20.
Dance Parade NYC
Dancing in the street is more than a great Motown song. It is a metaphor for freedom.
Callin’ out around the world
Martha and the Vandellas, 1964
Are you ready for a brand new beat?
Summer’s here and the time is right
For dancing in the street
The Dance Parade NYC was instrumental in the fight to repeal New York City’s Cabaret Law which prohibited dancing in restaurants and bars without a Cabaret License. It was enacted in 1926 to prevent interracial dancing in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance.
The Parade started in 2007 with over 2,000 people dancing in the street. What were the police going to do? Give out 2,000 tickets? LOL. The Cabaret Law was finally repealed in 2017.
But be careful of the Dance Police. They may give you a ticket ~ if you’re not dancing! So let’s dance!
Information
danceparade.org
X @DanceParadeNYC
Facebook @danceparadenyc
Instagram @DanceParadeNYC
YouTube @danceparade
TikTok @danceparadenyc