At Bryant Park, a Free Modern Dance Festival

The New York Times

June 24, 2015

by Brian Schaefer

The annoying thing about being a dance fan in the summer is that when the rest of the city occupies sidewalk cafes, conquers rooftop bars and snuggles up to sunset on a park bench, you’re slinking into a dark theater and suddenly it’s night. Happily, New York has a growing list of free outdoor options to address that problem, at the same time making dance part of a broader public conversation and providing an ideal picnic backdrop to boot. There’s the River to River festival in Lower Manhattan, which just ended; the Battery Dance Festival, returning in August; and the Hudson River Dance Festival, new this year.

On Friday night, Bryant Park hits the halfway point of its second modern dance festival, a weekly gathering overlooking the lawn (through July 10). This week’s menu includes Earl Mosley’s Diversity of Dance; BARE Dance; and 10 Hairy Legs, an all-male troupe from New Jersey that might have prickly lower limbs but moves with marble smoothness. (Bryant Park, bryantpark.org.)