Underground war has been waged in NYC this summer. Aboveground, the NYPD has cut back on racial profiling; yet down in the subway system the police have been targeting the greatest of threats to public security…dancers. Yeah, it seems silly to me too. Also, anyone who doesn’t see that the subway performer crackdown is just another form of racial profiling is delusional—for nearly all of the dancers are black teenage males. This issue has been in the news all summer, and I was thrilled that last Sunday NY Times dance critic Gia Kourlas wrote an article defending the poor dancers. Now, I’m not saying that there aren’t problems with the subway dance performances—it’s true that sometimes the dancers back-flip onto an unsuspecting passenger’s lap when the train lurches—but to arrest young kids (many of whom are quite gifted) in the middle of exuberant dance passages does not seem to me like the best use of the city’s hardworking cops.
Admittedly, I am not always enthused by the subway dancers during my daily commute between Brooklyn and Lincoln Center. But sometimes when I see a talented group on my way to work they remind me of how much fun dancing can be and I’m inspired to go to class or rehearsal. And the dancers always make me conscious of how lucky I am to be able to earn my living by dancing. I’m often blown away by the technical aspects of their work—some of the “untrained” train dancers
Admittedly, I am not always enthused by the subway dancers during my daily commute between Brooklyn and Lincoln Center. But sometimes when I see a talented group on my way to work they remind me of how much fun dancing can be and I’m inspired to go to class or rehearsal. And the dancers always make me conscious of how lucky I am to be able to earn my living by dancing. I’m often blown away by the technical aspects of their work—some of the “untrained” train dancers
use their limbs like Gumby dolls and their sneakers like pointe shoes. Many of them are on the level of the virtuosic Lil Buck who performed with the NYCB this past spring season. Since Lil Buck pulled in record crowds when he guested with us, I am shocked when my fellow straphangers barely acknowledge amazing feats of artistic form and expression. Although, nobody stopped in the D.C. metro to listen to Joshua Bell play his Strad in 2007 either…
Occasionally a group of dancers will be too wild and I’ll have to switch train cars to protect my own feet (about which all dancers are very neurotic), but for the most part the dancers in the subway have incredible balance and timing and can consistently pull off flips and break-dancing moves without so much as grazing anyone on the bumpy rides. Many klutzy pedestrian riders are far more dangerous when they forget to hold on to a pole! Honestly, I think the people passing out flyers at the top of the staircase at the Columbus Circle subway exit every day are the most dangerous of all. So many commuters stumble backwards at the top of those crowded steps when they are accosted by the literature of the bike rental guys or the free newspaper that is being shoved in their faces. The police should really do something about that!
Oddly enough, even before Gia’s article I was thinking about the subway dancers a lot recently. While I was home sick for a few days last week I watched a bunch of crap television and random movies, and one of the oddities I came across on HBO GO was Walter Hill’s 1979 cult classic The Warriors. Although the film is supposed to convey the extreme violence of gang wars on the subway, to my jaded modern eyes it looked like it was about teams of ballet dancers trying to upstage each other with goofy costumes and dance moves (let’s just say that fight choreography has come a long way). My boyfriend asked at one point, “how come everyone in this film looks exactly like someone in your company?” It was funny but true! For example: the handsome lead actor Michael Beck—who plays a gang member coincidentally named “Swan”—closely resembles my very handsome friend Stephen Hanna! We kept laughing at the film, and I can’t help but chuckle at the fact that those are basically the kinds of people the NYPD are after these days!
Occasionally a group of dancers will be too wild and I’ll have to switch train cars to protect my own feet (about which all dancers are very neurotic), but for the most part the dancers in the subway have incredible balance and timing and can consistently pull off flips and break-dancing moves without so much as grazing anyone on the bumpy rides. Many klutzy pedestrian riders are far more dangerous when they forget to hold on to a pole! Honestly, I think the people passing out flyers at the top of the staircase at the Columbus Circle subway exit every day are the most dangerous of all. So many commuters stumble backwards at the top of those crowded steps when they are accosted by the literature of the bike rental guys or the free newspaper that is being shoved in their faces. The police should really do something about that!
Oddly enough, even before Gia’s article I was thinking about the subway dancers a lot recently. While I was home sick for a few days last week I watched a bunch of crap television and random movies, and one of the oddities I came across on HBO GO was Walter Hill’s 1979 cult classic The Warriors. Although the film is supposed to convey the extreme violence of gang wars on the subway, to my jaded modern eyes it looked like it was about teams of ballet dancers trying to upstage each other with goofy costumes and dance moves (let’s just say that fight choreography has come a long way). My boyfriend asked at one point, “how come everyone in this film looks exactly like someone in your company?” It was funny but true! For example: the handsome lead actor Michael Beck—who plays a gang member coincidentally named “Swan”—closely resembles my very handsome friend Stephen Hanna! We kept laughing at the film, and I can’t help but chuckle at the fact that those are basically the kinds of people the NYPD are after these days!
Michael Beck in The Warriors
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Stephen Hanna
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