The 10th annual Dance Parade and Festival saw 10,000 dancers tap, boogie, waltz and disco down from 21st St. and Broadway to Tompkins Square Park on Saturday. In all, 81 glorious styles of dance were on display.
The gyrating street confab attracted dancers from around the city and as far away as Japan for a multicultural, rhythm-infused magical display of human movement, art, music and color.
This year’s theme, fittingly, was “Decade of Dance.” The grand marshals were Garth Fagan, the legendary choreographer of “The Lion King,” and hip hop dance pioneers Kwikstep and Rokafella.
This year saw the parade’s ethnic flavor expand even farther with new dance styles from Haiti, Tibet and Taiwan, along the likes of an all-female Scottish dance troupe and Caribbean stilt dancers.
After the parade, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., Tompkins Square Park was the setting for the DanceFest, with dance performances, workshops and lessons and social dancing.
