Some people feel obligated to support subway performers.

I am not one of them.

Don’t get me wrong. I am an artist. I support artists; I believe the world is a better place when people share the cultivated expressions of their souls.

I am also pro-public performance; NYC is filled with brilliant work on streets, in parks, and even in subway stations. It is part of the heart of the city. And the reality is that few of us will get an invite to Carnegie Hall. Most of us will never audition for Simon Cowell. Artists give their blood, sweat, and tears to mastering their craft, and places that allow them to perform are a good thing.

I don’t knock the hustle, but I draw the line at trains.

The subway performance is inherently coercive.

People enter an enclosed space for the sole purpose of transit. They are going to work. They are going home.

You enter this same space under the guise of doing the same, then subject them to a show that, for at least three minutes, they cannot leave, and for the full 30 minutes of their commute, shouldn’t have to, that concludes with an appeal for money. It’s aggressive panhandling. And that’s why it’s illegal.

So that, to me, is bad.

If you’re a train breakdancer, also known as a “showtime” dancer, it can quickly get worse.

This is the genre of subway performers that use train architecture to perform acrobatic acts.

They climb poles.

They shimmy along the ceiling bars.

They do backflips, and hat tricks, and flat kicks that make for great TikTok videos.

If they are good, it’s impressive to watch.

If they are less good, they kick people in the face.

And that, to me, is a problem. Call me old fashioned, but I don’t believe you should assault someone and then ask them for money.

This kid gets on the train. He is lean, muscular, shirtless in jeans. He could probably do well in a photo shoot for Step Up, Part 7.

He then loudly announces. “If you don’t like breakdancing, I DON’T GIVE A F***!”

To him this may have felt like a dance floor battle cry.

To me it just sounded like a threat, a weird way to greet people just discovering they are an audience.

So he has already failed the rapport test.

He starts dancing and kicks someone’s hat off. So he fails the skill test.

He takes the hand of an elderly Latina, and begins performing, what to me looks like a quasi-consensual lap dance. So, in my mind, he fails the “don’t assault grandma” test.

Then he concludes and starts asking for money.

He gets nothing. Except for a dollar from the elderly Latina, which, to me, seemed like grandma kindness. But maybe he passed the Chippendales audition test.

And he says “I get no love?”

And he seems genuinely hurt.

And the striking thing to me, is that his hurt seems to step from being completely oblivious to his own choices of context, tone, and behavior.

Social intelligence goes a long way in urban environments.

Self-awareness is a vital skill.

So is being able to read a room.

On this day, he lacked both, and is left asking “why don’t you like me?”

And this, to me, is both sympathetic, and worthy of thought.

I have been in many situations, particularly in my youth, where I struggled to read the room. I constantly had a sense that I had transgressed against some code, or offended someone somehow, but I couldn’t figure out how. It just felt like everyone knew something I didn’t, and no-one was willing to tell me.

I could chalk it up to ADHD, or Hydrocephalus, or to my own insecure oversensitivity.

We always take a risk when we join the crowd.

We take a greater risk when we stand up to move the crowd.

We take top risk when we transgress against social norms to stand out from the crowd.

It’s great when people receive us, but they don’t owe us anything.

I choose, in various ways, to share myself with the world.

I try, in numerous contexts, to support others who are doing so.

And I choose to set boundaries in the process.

I pray, today, that you let your light shine.

I pray that you celebrate others who are choosing to shine.

And I pray you kick no-one in the face.

Travel safe.

(Photo Credit: Engin Akyurt)