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May 14, 2015 Liam Mathews

On Sunday, subway dancers from the WeLiveThis troupe will turn the Brooklyn Museum’s Beaux-Arts Court into a “showtime” stage as part of an installation called “Public Disruption/Private Powers.” The installation will loosely interpret a subway car and allow the dancers to legally perform in order to “explore the relationship between dancers and the public,” according […]

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April 10, 2015 Liam Mathews

This is a video of two subway dancers trying to perform a tandem flip. The one kid lifts the other up too far and smacks his head against the roof of the car. They then continue the routine like nothing happened. The MTA wants to take moments like this one away from us, which would […]

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April 2, 2015 Liam Mathews

Impromptu public dance parties are such a thing that they’re apparently the new normal in New York City. If this is what New York is now, a magical playground where the R train can turn into a rave at any moment and everyone just goes along with it, I don’t think it’s for me. I’m […]

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October 29, 2014 Amy K. Nelson

It’s no secret that the targeting of subway performers has only increased since Police Commissioner William Bratton was appointed, and underscored the city’s need to enforce the “Broken Windows” policy. Among the many performers, though, is 5-year-old Nasir Malave, a talented dancer who roams the trains with his older brother, Marc, dancing to make money. […]

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August 8, 2014 Sophie Weiner

The cast of the long-running Broadway musical The Lion King broke into a performance of the show’s opening number, “The Circle Of Life,” on an A train earlier this week. Subway commuters expressed their usual levels of apathy, but the internet ate the video up — it has already surpassed 1.5 million views. Other subway performers haven’t […]

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July 15, 2014 Sophie Weiner

We’ve been following the story of the NYPD’s crackdown on “showtime” subway dancers over the last few months. According to the new police commissioner, the performances represent “small crimes that have a big impact, a negative impact on the general public.” This morning, Capital New York published a list of the locations where one third […]

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April 29, 2014 Andy Cush

As part of its ongoing quest to scrub NYC clean of fun things, the NYPD has arrested 96 subway dancers this year so far. Forty-six were arrested for reckless endangerment, and 50 got disorderly conduct charges. Last year, cops arrested two dancers. This, then, is the work of new commissioner Bill Bratton, pomiser of building […]

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