Care to dance online? The 14th annual Dance Parade is today

This year's Dance Parade — the 14th annual — lives on online. And it's happening today (Saturday!) from 1-3:30 p.m.

Details via the EVG inbox...

Anticipating 1,000 people dancing-in-place from around the world, parade organizers have lined up family-friendly fun and movement joy in DJ-lead dance rooms, free dance classes with top professionals, dance-offs between participants, flashmob, free dance classes, and will announce winners of Dare-to-Dance challenge. which invited house-bound choreographers to submit new work to win cash prizes. Register to participate at this link. Those wanting to watch can see the show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitch and YouTube Live!

In previous years, the Dance Parade sees St. Mark's Place as a main route while the subsequent Dancefest takes place in Tompkins Square Park.

The annual Dance Parade will be online in 2020

[Photo from 2019 by Stacie Joy]

Mayor de Blasio announced this morning that the city is canceling concerts, festivals and all other nonessential events through May — and perhaps even June — in an effort to reduce coronavirus infection rates.

Per CNBC:

De Blasio said this means the cancellation of the Brooklyn Half Marathon, which had been scheduled for May 16, and SummerStage in Central Park, which had been scheduled to begin June 22. Such events, he said, go “against everything that we need to do to fight back the coronavirus.” He’s also weighing whether to keep public beaches closed, saying “I can’t see” opening them up yet because the outbreak isn’t contained.

Among the cancellations: The Dance Parade, which sees St. Mark's Place as a main route, and the subsequent Dancefest in Tompkins Square Park. The 14th annual Dance Parade was scheduled for May 16. Organizers have replaced it with the Dance Without Borders Virtual Parade. More details on how this will work are forthcoming, per organizers.

This also means there won't be a 44th annual St. George's Ukrainian Festival on Seventh Street on the third weekend of May. There hasn't been an official announcement about this just yet.

In other news from yesterday, the Mayor says that it's unlikely that city pools and beaches will open this summer.

"If things evolve we’ll assess our options going forward, but I can't project it now because it wouldn’t be safe to project it now," he said during his morning presser.

And ICYMI yesterday: Gov. Cuomo announced the extension of New York's shutdown of nonessential businesses to May 15.