the vision

Dance Parade Inc is an all volunteer 501(c)3 non-profit charity that promotes dance as an expressive form of art. 

Each year we provide a world stage for hundreds of dance organizations so that we can celebrate cultural diversity and educate the general public about the opportunities to experience dance.

The annual Dance Parade and Festival takes place in New York City each May, on the Saturday before Memorial Day.

Over the past few years we’ve brought over 7000 dancers together to dance through the heart of Manhattan, presenting vibrant groups on and around colorful floats to tens of thousands of onlookers.  The parade unfolds down Broadway in historical order from when each genre was formed.  Our tagline is “One Parade - Many Cultures” and parade certainly portrays that...Young, old and filled with every world culture you can imagine.

As the earliest of cultures, African tribal dancers lead the way, followed by all kinds of world cultures, up through the middle ages with Irish Step, Cappoeira, Samba and Clogging to 19th and 20th century Balet, Ballroom, Swing, Hustle and Salsa and ends with urban and underground dance cultures.

Each year we end the parade with a free dance festival in a city park where we present choreographed stage performances, workshops for the public to take dance lessons and participate in the solidarity of this wonderful art form.

Throughout the year, in addition to producing the parade, our Educational Outreach Program presents various dance geners to school kids so that they will be inspired to reep the cultural and health benefits found in dance.  Our vision includes the expansion of dance parades around the world--You can certainly help us to realize this vision by following the links to join the parade, volunteer or donating toward the parade.

Why we do what we do:

To honor Dance’s historical roots:
New York has never celebrated the forms of dance that it has birthed until now: Voguing, Jazz, the Jitterbug, Punk, Gothic--even Salsa was birthed in the Cuban Communities in this great city. And it is now time for Dance. New York has enjoyed the last three years of a September Art Parade and since May 2007, we are finally honoring Dance in a similar fashion.

To unite in respecting Dance’s diversity:
Dance is vital in healthy societies, helping people to communicate and affirm individual and collective identity. Dance Parade is a multi-cultural, multi-generational expression of the joy and value of these various forms of expression. It will foster cross-pollination of dance forms as it introduces audiences to novel styles and beats: teenagers to tango, clubbers to square-dancing, and seniors to hip-hop.

To support grass-roots organizations:
As an umbrella organization, Dance Parade empowers and supports dance communities that do not have access to public funding yet have a communicative art form they wish to practice and promote. We help them build websites, get access to materials, fundraise, and reach broader audiences.

To legitimize Dance as a communicative, social form of expression:
In the 19th century, ballroom dancing was deemed devil’s work. In the 1920’s, New York City enacted the Cabaret Law to stem interracial dancing from Harlem Jazz Clubs. The 1930’s had Nazi Germany quashing Swing Dancing because it was considered anarchistic. And in 2006, a New York State Supreme Court ruled that, unlike music, theater and painting, dance is not a constitutionally protected form of expression. In contrast, Dance Parade will highlight the diversity found in its many forms and showcase dance’s immense cultural and communicative importance.

To invoke joy and brotherhood:
New York’s annual dance parade will reinstate New York City as the dance performance and nightlife capital of the world. We quote Dr. Motte, the founder of Berlin’s Love parade: “Dance is spreading rapidly and is unstoppable around the world. It is about LOVE and it is about FREEDOM. This represents a much wider personal, social and spiritual transformation-revolution which will utterly change our world over the coming decades.
THIS IS OUR FUTURE. OPEN YOUR HEART! FREE YOUR MIND! FACE YOUR FEARS! LIVE YOUR SOUL! DANCE!”