Where are the square dancers?
Tomorrow, at least 5073 dancers in 113 organizations representing 60 unique dance styles will dance down Broadway and through Manhattan in the 3rd annual New York Dance Parade. There’s samba , salsa, ballet, Bulgarian, modern, circus streetdance, pole dancing (!!!) , ecstatic, ballroom, belly; even our contra dancing cousins are joining in. But no square dancers.
Dance Parade Inc is a 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is:
to promote dance as an expressive and unifying art form by showcasing all forms of dance
, educating the general public about the opportunities to experience dance, and celebrating diversity of dance in New York City by sponsoring a yearly city-wide dance parade and dance festival.
They want to honor Dance’s historical roots , unite in respecting Dance’s diversity, support grasss-roots organizations, legitlmize Dance as a communicative , social form of expression, and invoke joy and brotherhood.
Maybe square dancers would look silly among all the myriad ethnic and current urban dance styles. On the other hand , if paired with the contra dancers (dance styles are together, in roughly historical order), it could be an interesting juxtaposition to show you can do a traditional dance style to modern music. And if square dancers aren’t there, and virtually every other social dance form is, what does that say about square dancing?