After-School Dancers Take the Stage After 3-Year Pandemic Pause

Sabastian Merrill, from PS 234's kindergarten/1st grade Hip Hop class, shows his moves during the first Manhattan Youth after-school in-person dance performance in three years. The set design featured giant reproductions of program covers from past recitals. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

“It’s great to really be back. Back on stage! Back in the auditorium!” Moises Cordero announced triumphantly to audience cheers. “Back seeing your beautiful faces!”

“We’re Back,” was indeed the theme of two shows on Jan. 21 by Manhattan Youth’s after-school dance classes. The long-running recital tradition, featuring kids from seven Downtown elementary schools and the Downtown Community Center, returned to the PS 89 stage following three Covid-interrupted years. Bringing it all together after that long pause was a “gargantuan effort,” said Cordero, Manhattan Youth’s director of after-school programs.

A video slideshow from the first of two performances by Manhattan Youth's after-school dance classes. This one included students from PS 276, PS 150, PS 89, and PS 234. The second show featured dancers from the Downtown Community Center, PS 343 and PS 397. Photos by Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Susan Kay, who has directed the recitals—two a year—since they began in 2010, agreed. “We’re a little rusty,” she said in an interview between shows. During the intervening years there was a heavy turnover of counselors and dance teachers, Kay said, plus “all the moving parts” to remember despite all the records she's kept from past peformances.

“But it was fine,” she added. “It all worked out.”

With enrollment down in the city’s public schools, about 100 children performed in the two shows, half the number from previous years. “Our classes used to be packed and now a lot of them don’t have that many students, but we’ll keep it going and build,”

Kay has announced that the next show, in June, would be her last to direct. “It’s time to pass the torch,” she said, noting that she will still be involved, as well as continuing to run Manhattan Youth’s popular ceramics program.

But some things never change: the joy and enthusiasm of families watching the earnest gyrations of little ones on stage. “We know from experience that when the kids are actually in front of the audience and their families, everything works well,” Kay said. “And at the end, even if the kids don’t know the steps, it doesn’t matter. It’s just the spirit of it.”