I know I promised an entry about the Dance Parade on Monday. Better late than never.
So, you see, in New York there’s some historically racist bullsh** called the Cabaret Law. Here’s a good timeline of the important dates and facts regarding the legislation, a detailed academic piece, the actual text of the Cabaret Law, and a Wiki on other NYC nightlife legislation. Essentially, if you own an establishment where food and drink is served, and you want to also provide entertainment specifically for people to dance to, you have to obtain a special Cabaret License in addition to the standard liquor license and other necessary paperwork. That bears repeating for those of you who aren’t in New York and haven’t had any experience with it. If you own a bar, club, restaurant, etc. in New York City and you book a dj or band or the like, it is specifically illegal for anyone to dance in said venue unless you have a Cabaret License. I think at one point the law went so far as to use the terminology “two or more persons moving rhythmically”, though I can’t find the particular section of the text that mentions that, so maybe it has been removed. Regardless, you might be wondering why I called the law racist. Well, it was enacted originally in 1926 (1926! and still active today!) in a veiled attempt to crack down on clubs during the Harlem Renaissance, and more succinctly, it affected white people who wanted to go to Harlem to dance to black jazz. Giuliani’s administration (who else?) was primarily responsible for the resurgence in attention to the law during his infamous “broken windows” campaign to sanitize NYC.
So, as my girlfriend eloquently put it, some people decided to organize “protest disguised as fun”, and this is the second year we’ve attended the New York Dance Parade.


My favorite part of the parade is the cultural diversity, which you can see in the following photos, each of which links to the associated dance group’s website.
Fraternidad Cultural Pachamama Bolivian Dance Troupe, by far the most enthusiastic:

P.U.R.E. belly dance

Manhattan Samba

Asamed Middle Eastern Dance troupe

Sisters in Motion

Of course, you can check out many more on Flickr.
Unfortunately, this year there were far fewer techno-related groups involved, last year there were multiple house floats and even some hardcore, which pleased me to no end, you can’t really beat gabber parading down the streets of New York. This year the only techno float that I saw was the Pacha float, which was shockingly not awful, but I really would have liked some more representation. Disorient was there, but their float was slapdash and not as impressive as their showing last year. Regardless, the parade was quite entertaining, and colorful! If you happen to be in the city next year, please do attend.