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Think you can’t afford to learn how to groove from world-class dancers? Think again: Battery Dance Festival, the city’s longest-running free public dance festival, is bringing back its crowd-favorite $1 workshops this week, and the lineup is as global as it gets. From Monday, August 11 through Saturday, August 16, you can score a morning slot at Battery Dance Studios in Tribeca with visiting artists from Spain, Taiwan, Indonesia and beyond, all for less than the price of your daily coffee.
RECOMMENDED: The best dance classes NYC has to offer
Each 90-minute class runs from 10–11:30 am at the company’s fifth-floor space at 380 Broadway (yes, it’s a walk-up, but the warm-up starts on the stairs). Reservations are required in advance and spots tend to vanish faster than you can say grand jeté. The token $1 fee is non-refundable—think of it as your investment in bragging rights.
Over the course of the week, guest instructors from the Netherlands, Taiwan, Germany, South Korea, Spain and Indonesia will share their unique approaches to movement, culminating with a class led by Battery Dance itself. It’s an unusually intimate chance to train with artists who are also performing in the festival, which makes the workshops feel like a backstage pass to the action.
The workshops are just one part of the 44th Annual Battery Dance Festival, which is celebrating its latest season with a five-night performance run from Aug. 12–16. Each evening kicks off at 7 pm against a jaw-dropping Hudson River backdrop at Rockefeller Park. The program is a mash-up of premieres, international debuts and live music, drawing more than 12,000 in-person attendees and 35,000 online viewers each summer.
Expect everything from tap virtuoso John Manzari & Band to the New York debut of Wan Dance from Indonesia, plus a world premiere from Battery Dance itself. The festival even has themed nights—Friday, Aug. 15 is “India Day,” featuring a new production on the Goddess Kali by Pittsburgh’s Nandanik Dance Troupe and Kolkata-based soloist Subhajit Khush Das.
Battery Dance has been connecting New Yorkers with the world through movement since 1976, not just on stage but also in public spaces, schools and conflict zones around the globe. These $1 workshops are a rare chance to step into that mission—literally—while picking up a new skill or three. So lace up, limber up and snag a spot before they’re gone.