Of all the joy that has blossomed throughout the Knicks' championship run, the most visible has been the joyful transfer of energy from one body to another. A wave of dance has swept the city:
Appearing in and around buses (in some cases, brooms are needed):
And even dance while balancing a television screen above their head, showing just how daring some of these dancers can be:
Late Wednesday night, after the Knicks staged a stunning comeback victory over the Spurs to win by a single point, the spectators, united by incredulous happiness, decided to dance without saying a word. They jumped and jumped, celebrities and all. Videos circulating on social networks show Timothée Chalamet being a part of this rebound phenomenon, jumping into a makeshift mosh pit with other obsessed Knicks members. Right now fans are fans. And any amateur can be a dancer.
In addition to making this a summer of blue and orange skies, the New York Knicks gave the city the gift of spontaneous dancing. Fans are flooding social media with videos of euphoric movement. There are no cultural barriers at this victory dance party; It's about sharing the outdoor stage.
In Times Square, dancers performed joyous spins with arms linked and then gave way to light, shuffling kicks, feeding the street with that Knicks spirit of inclusion.
Here emerges a whimsical version of the robot. In this duet, two fans face each other, arm in arm.
Reacting hand to hand makes sense. I always felt like the Knicks were professional basketball's equivalent of modern dance. Salaries aside, the Knicks, like early and current modern dancers, have always struggled, or at least tried their best, to get the job done. They hurry. They are rough and raw. Beautiful shots happen, but the effort of getting there – the weaving and execution between executions – has as much or more to offer than the powerful movement of a dunk.
It can get ugly. But when the Knicks fail, they “start over,” in the words of modern dance teacher Merce Cunningham.
For Cunningham, each new day provided the dancer with a new lease on life. The same goes for the Knicks. If you miss a shot, you keep going. For those of us who have stuck with the team through good times and bad, when on-court abandonment had more to do with reckless fighting than daring behind-the-back passes, we feel like we've fought alongside the Knicks. As if we were all part of the same body, in the same state of flow, the same “Empire State of Mind”.
With Knicks fever so all-consuming, reacting with movement makes sense. As the players battled to win the championship, they filled our eyes and hearts with an addictive, almost brutal drive. A dancing response was natural. As this post shows, it comes out of our bodies in stops, stutters and good moods, as we find a flow, our flow.
In dance and basketball there is a sweet spot that requires years of training to find and conquer. How, in Game 4, did OG Anunoby lunge forward from so far to put the ball in the basket? It was like watching a ghost, blurry but clear, move through a body. He found that state of flow always elusive. The spirit moved him.
The same thing happens with the dancing public. Watching basketball is a collective experience. It was fitting that the Knicks sparked the urge to dance. But it is about more than just liberation. It was a physical manifestation of the drama inherent in basketball. Here, with keen theatrical instincts, a young ripper parted the crowd for a backflip after Game 4:
And then he decided to start his power moves again.
The exuberance reflects what you saw in the arena as the Knicks demonstrated how they learned to play as a team or, as this post points out, as a dance company working together in a collaborative spirit. Teamwork is the only path to glory, and when the Knicks play well, they play as one. His kinesthetic awareness is part of what you feel on the court. Here, in the warm-up exercises, they perfect it so that they can breathe as one when it really matters.
As the poster in the background of this sly and, as we now know, overly optimistic sweep dance (“Good Vibes Only”) attests, the mood and motivation of this explosion of movement is rare: pure happiness. The Knicks, the Astaire to our Rogers, have helped us find our rhythm. A state of flow is there for the taking, even when you're dancing at a secret celebration all alone in your room.
