What If A City Could Dance? This Series Finds Out.

Last Tuesday, the Bay-Area public radio station KQED released the first of eight videos in a web series titled “If Cities Could Dance”—and folks, it’s a stunner. Following three charismatic voguers around San Francisco as they #werk and eloquently describe what their artform means personally and historically, it’s a three-minute turboshot of serious inspiration, a painless dance history lesson, and a poetic ode to how environment catalyzes creativity.

Beyond the sheer beauty of the movement and setting, there’s also something deeply important and deadly serious going on here. According to KQED, the series “features dancers fighting cultural erasure, gentrification and the silencing of their collective voices. Dancers from eight cities across the United States are reclaiming their space — and their neighborhoods through dance. Performing outside of traditional performance spaces and in unconventional urban settings, including an open-air produce market, a historic train station, and city streets, each episode tells an intimate, personal story about the artists and their deep-rooted relationships to their community. The series highlights dancers in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Detroit, Portland, Los Angeles, Baltimore and New Orleans, celebrating dance styles unique to each urban area.”

New episodes drop every Tuesday between now and May 28. While we wait for our next essential dose of community-centric dance powered by social justice, check out the series’ trailer below.