Some Family Bonding

Dance, like many art forms today, is severely under appreciated in many arenas of modern life.  Thankfully, wonderful organizations work to correct this, like New York Dance Parade.  In its 5th annual event, the New York Dance Parade's mission is "to promote dance as an expressive and unifying art form by showcasing all forms of dance, educating the general public about the opportunity to experience dance and celebrate the diversity of dance."  With 160 groups of 74 unique dancing styles, I'd say that they are well on their way to accomplishing this.  On May 21, 2011, over 9000 dancers hit the streets of New York, showing off their moves and inspiring all who watched them strut their stuff.  There were marching bands, ballroom dancers, pole dancers, cheerleaders, and many more parading down the streets towards Tompkins Square Park in the East Village where there were informational tents and even more performers all around.  The event itself was lovely, and the people all too enthusiastic about dance.  At times it was a little hard to walk through the crowds in Tompkins Square Park, but that's to be expected in such a large event.

After the exploring the event a bit, my family and I headed over to Little Italy for some Thai and Gelati, as we usually do when we're in that area of the city.  It was a good number blocks away, so we got a decent walk out of it. And best of all, the raptor and the cloverfield monster did not poke their heads out!

Now onto some pictures!