We’re pretty excited for the return of PLATFORM at the New York Transit Museum, a crowdsourced evening of performances inspired by and performed by the people you may have shared a subway car with. On April 1st, in the decommissioned subway station the museum calls home in Brooklyn, there will be (among many others) a reading of the play about the demolition of Penn Station by our partners at The Eternal Space, who also co-host our tour on the Remnants of Penn Station. Another performance that caught our eye is a dance invasion called the Third Rail, which addresses the very timely topic of subway etiquette, like manspreading (previously also addressed by Johnny T the Muppet).
Jamie Benson, choreographer of the Shakedown Dance Collective tells us about these dance “riffs” on common transit experiences, detailing the vignettes that will be shown in the piece entitled Third Rail:
MANSPREADING: Exaggerated leg spreading dance to depict lack of courtesy towards other people’s space
BLOCKING: Football Metaphor with people actively trying to block each other from entering and exiting the train
MINGLE: Overlapping sways, stumbles, noises and gestures to create a sense of being on a packed train
SCHOOL’S OUT: Teens dominating the space, pushing, yelling and wreaking havoc on the train
MAKE-UP/PHONE TAI CHI: Intense focus on phones and applying make-up illustrated through moves inspired by Tai-Chi
GROSS THINGS: People dance dodging gross things on the floor
SERENADE: Drunk man singing to the passengers while just trying to catch his balance.
Click here for tickets and full list of performances on PLATFORM’s April 1st return.
