Every May, the New York City Dance Parade throngs the streets of Lower Manhattan with flamboyant costumes, dynamic music and expressive movements.
But ahead of this year’s extravaganza on Saturday — where more than 100 dance styles from West Africa Kuku and Bolivian Caporales to Dancehall and Vogue will be performed — participants from kids to young adults to seniors are all having to find ways to prepare for rain on their parade.
“I’m pulling up with an umbrella,” said one grade-school aged girl from the Academy for College Prep in Flatbush, who was performing a step dance routine in a preview of the parade outside City Hall Wednesday. “We’re gonna do what we’re gonna have to do,” another chimed in, as grey clouds took shape overhead.
“I just pray it doesn’t rain,” a third girl said, before continuing in a precocious tone: “I don’t have time for another disaster.”
Dance Parade performers join a City Hall press conference ahead of the 19th-annual celebration, May 14, 2025. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
The Dance Parade was first organized in 2007 in protest of a Prohibition-era city Cabaret Law which regulated patron dancing in commercial establishments and disproportionately affected Harlem jazz clubs and uptown Latin clubs.
That law, which former Mayor Rudy Giuliani leveraged in a “quality-of-life” campaign in the late 1990s, was finally repealed in 2017 — and paraders have returned each year after that to celebrate dance and their freedom to perform it.
The looming forecast for this year’s parade, however, has posed a unique challenge for Zazel Chavah O’Garra and her dance troupe, ZCO/DANCEPROJECT, which is dedicated to dancers with disabilities.
O’Garra has been dancing since she was eight, she said, but a brain tumor surgery paralyzing the right side of her body about 20 years ago made her redefine her relationship with the art. (She declined to give her age, revealing only that “if my parents were still alive, my mother would be 105 and my father would be 116.”)
“I’ll never forget — I sat on the chair and they put the music on, and when the music came on and the audience looked at me, I knew that this was something I could continue to do,” O’Garra said, recalling her first return to the stage post-surgery more than a decade ago. “It was just the feeling of absolute joy. It was a rebirth. It was a resurrection.”
The native New Yorker performed at the parade for the first time last year, and had hoped to rent a motorized scooter for the length of this year’s parade and performance. But now, she worried, the rain may interfere with the scooter’s functions.
“I was hoping to showcase how beautiful movement is done from a chair. That’s what the emphasis is when I perform on the chair — moving freely and elegantly and with passion and soul,” O’Garra said, noting how the temporary stages at Tompkins Square Park, where performances will be held Saturday, won’t be wheelchair accessible.
And, with the various challenges, she said: “I have to wait and see what happens.”
Dancing Their Way In
Up in The South Bronx’s Haus of Performing Arts, founder Casimar Valles, 35, directed a group of children ranging from about first to fifth grades to get in formation as they rehearsed for their parade routine Wednesday evening.
“Can everyone take one step back?” Valles instructed.
Haus of Dance performers practice in their Bronx studio ahead of Dance Parade, May 15, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
A door cracked open in the back let in fresh air — along with the pitter-pattering sounds of the downpour outside. One song played after another as the children practiced their jazz fusion repertoire.
“I was a secret dancer growing up,” said Valles, a native Bronxite who grew up in the Betances Houses. “When you’re in the projects, you don’t necessarily want to come outside as a boy in sequins.”
But “every door that I couldn’t get into walking, I was able to dance my way in,” said Valles, who hoped to extend those opportunities to the children under his care.
Haus of Dance founder Casimar Valles leads a practice at their Bronx studio ahead of Dance Parade, May 15, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
Many of his students said they have only begun dancing last year, as the Haus transitioned from a recreational dance school to an afterschool program where childcare costs are mostly covered by now-frozen city vouchers.
This Saturday’s parade, the children said, will be the first time many of them are performing in public, outside of school.
“I feel happy that I feel like I can explode any second,” third grader Fatimah Gouemvdouma said about Saturday’s parade, swaying and wiggling rhythmically even before rehearsal. “I always like to dance, and every time I do it it makes me super happy to get that energy in. It makes me calm.”
A first grader, donning red glasses, also jumped up and down in joy when asked about the parade, while another girl in a hijab gave it two thumbs up.
“Yeah, I’m excited, but I feel really nervous too,” said fourth grader Bryce Smith, one of the parade group’s line leaders and its only boy. “And this is my first parade, too,” the 10-year-old continued, shortly after sharing his earliest memory of dance — reliving it by breaking into a spin with his arm stretched out like an airplane before landing in a pose.
Meanwhile, several feet away, Valles was now swarmed by children admiring sequin-lined jackets and dresses he had designed for them.
“I’m wearing this,” one voice emerged from the cacophony of excited chit-chat among the children. “This other one is amaaaazing,” another child said.
‘Life and Movement’
Later that evening, at a Midtown dance studio where a light drizzle fell outside the window, dancer Christopher Flores from the MAZarte Dance Company commanded the room: “¡Música, Maestro!”
A tune from the Mexican state of Guerrero commenced, and men in sombreros began to shuffle across the room, waving their handkerchiefs in the same directions as their steps.
A slight breeze brushed the air as the women sashayed towards where the men once stood, fanning their Folklórico dancing skirts back and forth — some red and others pink or blue.
Moments later, the half-dozen dancers tapped their embroidered heels and metal-plated boots in unison — a signal that they had arrived into formation. One woman let out a cathartic grito out of exhaustion, while another responded in kind with joy.
Performers with the MAZarte Dance Company practice in their Midtown studio ahead of Dance Parade, May 14, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
“It’s called Ollin Yoliztli in Mexico,” teacher Noe Dominguez explained, referring to an expression in the indigenous Nahuatl language that means “life and movement.” “It’s the energy that you give, and that is given back to you. It can be clapping, or in this case when they’re shouting or whistling.”
Here at MAZarte, where a rehearsal for the parade was in session, classmates new and old share meals after practices, while mothers and daughters argue and bond over dance.
“Sometimes we butt heads a little bit,” said Jasmine Hernandez, a 29-year-old paralegal, who’s been dancing alongside her mother, Alicia Hernandez, at the studio for several years. “But I think we leave it all in the studio, on the stage, and in the performances. And once we go home we’re fine — in fact, we bond over it.”
Saturday’s parade will be the tenth for Alicia, who started practicing Mexican Folklórico while in high school decades ago. She stopped briefly while pregnant with Jasmine and in the first years after she was born — but soon returned to the dance floor while passing her passion for the art down to her daughter.
Performers with the MAZarte Dance Company practice in their Midtown studio ahead of Dance Parade, May 14, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
“It gives you a sense of direction because you need to know where you come from in order to know where you want to go,” Alicia said. “She used to be shy at the beginning, but actually two years ago she joined one of the parades.”
Ayotzin Zuniga, for her part, said she began dancing at the studio four years ago after her three fledglings began to leave the nest.
“All of them were out of my house, and I do feel the emptiness, like, ‘What am I gonna do with all my time?’ because I dedicated my life to the three of them,” said the 53-year-old, who was named after the word for squash flower in the Nahuatl language. “And that’s why I’m here. And this is like a family — for all of us.”
One of Zuniga’s classmates, more than “like a family,” is her 28-year-old, American-born daughter, Lizeth Abarca, who joined the studio just three months ago and described how dancing has made her feel more connected to her heritage.
“I like dancing in general, but I never thought about dancing something Mexican because I’m Mexican,” said Abarca, who is preparing for her first Dance Parade this Saturday. “But I really liked the costumes and the festival, and I saw the photos, and I was like, ‘Ooh! I want to do that!”
Zuniga’s eyes began to swell up as she looked to her daughter: “I feel proud that they like our culture. I feel very proud.”
As the clock struck 8 p.m. and the last song ended, the dozen dancers began to gather their belongings — removing sombreros from their heads and skirts from their waist.
“I’ll see you Friday?” Dominguez let out one final reminder. “It will be our last rehearsal before the parade.”
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