Time to Boogey at THE DANCE PARADE

I love parades. One year I went to every parade down Fifth Avenue. But none of them held a candle to the Dance Parade, which I discovered by accident last year.

Tomorrow, Saturday, May 21, it’s happening again starting at 1 p.m. at 21 Street and Broadway, Manhattan. Gabriel Aguira, a neighbor on Ditmas Avenue and a choreographer and director of the Carnaval de Tlaxcala Mexico, will be among the 8839 dancers in 160 organizations who will dance, shake and shout in 74 styles as the parade rolls down Broadway.  Along the way it will  pass the Saturday Union Square Farmers' Market, strut down University Place, twirl on 8th Street, past the Astor Place Grandstand, through the East Village and then on to Tompkins Square Park.  Here a dance and performance cornucopia, the DanceFest, including lessons, will take place from 3 to 6:30 p.m. spilling into every corner and free space in the park.

All this boogeying down Broadway will happen in “history of dance order” and will cover the full range of dance styles from ballet, modern, jazz, Broadway show, to traditional dances of various countries, to salsa, break, dancehall, disco, house, jitterbug, Bhangra.  The Dance Parade program lists all the companies, the route, and reviews from The Daily News, Time Out, NY Times, et al. Come boogey. You won’t be sorry. Oh yes, and I forgot the floats.