Fighting for the Right to Dance in NYC’s Public Parks
NEW YORK CITY’S Washington Square Park is an iconic landmark and a thriving public space. First opened to the public in 1827, the park has always been a haven for artists, performers and lovers of culture. On a warm-weather day, musicians play, artists paint and dancers move to the beat of songs, making the fountain area that adjoins the park’s looming marble arch a truly communal area.
One young performer has found an especially compelling means of expression and freedom within its space. Kanami Kusajima, 25, is what she calls an “ink dancer.” She dips her fingers in a bowl of ink — usually black but she sometimes delves into other colors — and drops, drags and wipes them along a large white sheet of sturdy paper as she moves to the soft tones of music. (Sometimes it’s classical and other times it’s alternative rock songs from the early 2000’s). Her stage name, Let Hair Down, references her long black tresses, which flow down to her waist as she lets them free from a ponytail at the start of any performance. As she dances, that hair moves dramatically as she spins and gestures and tosses her head, becoming almost mystical at times.
But back in the winter of 2020, Kusajima began having some harrowing experiences with park security officers. These encounters have upended her sense of Washington Square Park as a safe artistic haven and have demonstrated, to her and to others following her story, just how many challenges and obstacles street performers face in a city that claims to love and support artistic freedom and expression.
This story is an attempt to chronicle Kusajima’s inhospitable treatment and to chart how she and other performers, along with some local city-council representatives, have been working to push back on rules that many feel are unfair, overly restrictive, and erratically, arbitrarily enforced.
LIKE A LOT OF NEW YORK RESIDENTS, Kusajima isn’t a native. Born and raised in Japan, she started contemporary dance training at a local dance school when she was only six years old. After graduating high school, she decided to pursue professional dancing in New York. She applied and was accepted to SUNY Purchase College in 2016.
Kusajima graduated in the spring of 2020, only a few months after Covid-19 hit the United States. As with every student that year, her graduation was virtual and her future was uncertain. Broadway theaters were closed. There were no performing arts classes available in-person. To pass the time, Kusajima began taking online dance classes. She also started livestreaming her performances on YouTube and via Zoom. But before long, she missed having the sense of direct connection that comes with sharing a space with an in-person audience.
While figuring out what to do, Kusajima remembered that Washington Square Park was famous for artists and performers. At the time, she lived in an apartment in Queens. One summer day, she decided to hop on a train and visit.
“I figured it was a good place to start,” she says.
She wound up befriending a performer named Pinokio Takurohinokio, whose Instagram page describes him only as “a painter” but who has many artistic talents. Kusajima introduced herself and asked about his work. Pinokio, it turned out, is also Japanese. He had been dancing at the park for four years, and had established a practice of dancing while creating art from ink. Intrigued by the concept, Kusajima asked if she could join him.
That marked the beginning of a strong and nurturing friendship. Kanami started going to Washington Square Park daily, performing with Pinokio. Although she was saddened when he decided to return to Japan, Pinokio gave her his blessing to continue, using his form of dance-meets-ink-and-paper expression.
Inspired by her mentor, Kusajima had been coming to the park all through summer 2020 and into the fall. She’d put on multiple performances per day, visiting four, five or even six days in a given week to create her live paintings. Rain or snow, she was there. Eventually, she became a fixture, not only receiving cash contributions in her donation box but occasionally flowers and letters from people who loved watching her perform.
“It’s really important to be part of the community,” she says, “because you’re performing in a public space and you’re borrowing the space where people spend their time.”
As far as Kusajima was concerned, she was and is always considerate of those around her. She was about to find out that security forces in the park did not agree with that self-assessment.
One cold December day — she’s not sure of the exact date — as was her usual routine, Kusajima was happily dancing, this time to an almost empty park. Only a few onlookers were standing by — a diminished crowd that reflected continuing fears about COVID-19 transmission in those pre-vaccine-distribution days. On this particular day it was snowing, so Kusajima wasn’t creating her ink art, as the ground was too wet for paper. The vibe was peaceful. The music was soothing.
So it was a shock to Kusajima when, in the middle of her dancing, two men in dark green uniforms approached her. These Park Enforcement Patrol (PEP) officers, a unionized group who do not carry firearms but who, according to existing news reports, are outfitted with pepper spray and batons in case they encounter violent citizens, are responsible for maintaining the city’s public parks as well as for providing security for big events held in these public spaces. As of April 2022, the PEP celebrated its 40th anniversary, according to a press release from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
Since Kusajima had already been dancing for months with no objections, she was confused as to why the guards were approaching her now with an air of stern purpose in their body language. The officers then told her that she needed to lower the volume of her speaker because, in their words, she was being “disruptive.” In the sound-muffling snow. In a mostly empty park.
Two years later, the memory still stings for Kusajima.
“My speaker is, literally, handful size,” she explains, sounding frustrated. Her device is in fact a small, rechargeable JBL speaker, incapable of producing sound more than 80 decibels loud. That’s only about as loud as an alarm clock. “You can pick it up with one hand,” says Kusajima of this modest amplification device. “From outside of the park, you’re not gonna hear it.”
Confronted but deciding to comply, Kusajima did lower the volume of her speakers. She did so at least three or four times until the officers were satisfied and left her alone. She wasn’t issued a ticket but the incident left her shaken and uncomfortable, believing that she had been singled out.
When she started asking around and talking with other street performers at the park, she found out this harassment-level treatment was actually a common occurrence. Still, she wondered if her appearance had been a factor.
“Maybe it was easier to target me,” she says. “I was by myself. I’m small, a woman, Asian.”
Not to be intimidated, Kusajima returned the next day.
“People need it, right?” she says. “Like the very first day [I ever did this], people cried in front of me and told me, ‘Thank you for doing this.’ So I really felt a strong feeling of like, ‘Okay, I have to do this as much as possible every day.’”
Unfortunately for Kusajima, the initial incident was only the first of many. For the next several months, she continued showing up to the park to dance and different PEP officers — sometimes with an accompanying NYPD officer — would interrupt, again and again, to tell her to lower or turn off her speakers.
“I felt offended because people were watching me dancing in the snow and appreciating what I was doing,” she says.
The very first incident, from December 2020, was not captured on video, and Kusajima did not even have her official “Let Hair Down” Instagram account set up until much later that year. But as months passed and the attempted shutdowns continued and escalated, some of them were documented, either by Kusajima or by another parkgoer, and shared by Kusajima through Instagram posts and stories.
As her public profile rose, generating articles about her in AmNY and The Village Sun, Kusajima decided to try to make herself an expert by researching the park’s history with street performers and the different rules and regulations, thinking this would allow her to better avoid being a target. Instead, she found that the path to performing without incident was more complicated and more expensive than she thought.
PERMITS TO PERFORM at Washington Square Park have technically always been required by city law, right back to the park’s inception in 1827. For more than a century, that was by most accounts a formality that went unenforced. The baseline live-and-let-live ethos changed dramatically in 1961, however, during the so-called “Beatnik Riot,” in which the NYPD arrested hundred of “folkies” — groups of musicians that sang folk songs. (PEP did not yet exist; it wasn’t formed until 1981, which saw New York City just beginning to emerge out of a miserable period of bankruptcy fears, fallout from the 1977 blackout and rising crime.)
A 2011 report on NPR marked the riot’s 50th anniversary, in which the folkies, who were denied permits to perform at Washington Square Park but given no explanation as to why, had decided to peacefully protest and sang “The Star Spangled Banner” at the officers who were deployed to arrest them. No one knew exactly why the folkies were being removed from the park but it showed the power of organized protest against authority. (According to the NPR account, one folkie organizer was later quoted saying that as far as he’d heard, then-Parks Commissioner Newbold Morris believed folk music to be dangerous because it “brings degenerates, but it’s not so.”)
In the end, the 1960s folkies did get their permit to play on subsequent dates, and the park’s status as a countercultural stronghold not only survived but thrived. Through many ups and downs in urban crime trends and a steady gentrification of the surrounding Greenwich Village area, the park has been more or less a welcoming place to performers.
At least, not un-welcoming to un-amplified performers. And that’s the catch Kusajami has been caught in.
This reporter tried to clarify the rules with the Parks and Recreation department but found getting responses to be a slow and sometimes unhelpful process.
“Buskers may perform on Parks property without a permit, but must comply with all applicable provisions. A permit is required for use of amplified sound,” stated a Parks and Recreation press representative unequivocally in an e-mail.
But is all amplification really created equal? Isn’t there a difference between, say, a blaring rock guitarist’s solo and a dancer’s mellow accompaniment? According to the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation’s website, the rules for in-park performances specify that “no person shall make, or cause or allow to be made, unreasonable noise in any park so as to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or harm.” The site defines “unreasonable noise” as “excessive or extremely loud” sounds that disturb the peace or cause injuries.
Another section states, “No person shall play or operate any sound reproduction device, as defined in § 1–02 of these rules, in any park without a permit from the Department and any other City agency or agencies with pertinent jurisdiction.”
The stated rules, then, allow for no exceptions: If you use so much as a battery-powered “pill” speaker, you’re in technical violation.
In practice, these rules are enforced on a case by case basis and aren’t exactly applied consistently. But in order to feel safe and secure in her chosen performing space once more, Kusajima wanted to try to reasonably comply.
SHE DECIDED TO LOOK INTO getting a “special events” permit. It turned out that this costs $25 and it takes between 21–30 days to be approved. But a sound amplifier permit, which you apply for at a local precinct and must pick up the day of the event, is an additional $45, for a total of $70.
The problem is, the fees are per performance. Which means that since Kusajima was performing up to six days a week, she would have to shell out around $420 per week (or $1,680 per month) just to dance. This amount, even on a good day for her, would be impossible to shell out. (Kusajima declined to talk specifics about income from her dancing, but one recent online report about NYC busking indicated that performers can at best expect to pull in $100 to $200 on a given day — and they can’t count on that.)
“Think about it,” says Kusajima of the $1,680 per month required to get full outdoor-sound event permits. “It’s more than some apartments’ rent just to be in this space, in this park, to perform. It’s not right.”
Kusajima was not alone in feeling the situation needed changing. Around March 2021, she created a Change.org petition detailing her many frustrating encounters with park authorities. Notably, she mentions in the petition page that she got a certain amount of sympathy from actual police officers stationed under the park’s archway, who felt she wasn’t a noise issue. Still, the PEP officers kept trying to shut her down.
In June of that year, she was approached by a photographer and was asked if she’d like to be a part of a New York City ad called “No Stopping New York,” which promoted the city’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. The project was a partnership between the Mayor’s Office and the media company SS+K. Kusajima’s image was featured on billboards and at bus stops. Although she did not receive any compensation, she was happy to be a part of it. But she also points out the irony in how the city had used her for promotion purposes but local law enforcement still continued to harass her.
“I said ‘yes’ because I don’t need any money,” she says. “But then you take advantage of my art for your New York City purpose, at least, allow me to do my performance. It doesn’t make any sense.”
By August, one of her encounters with park rangers caught the attention of some media outlets, including Curbed and The Independent. In the video, which was taken by a parkgoer and has generated over 5,000 likes, Kusajima is seen arguing with two PEP officers and two NYPD officers. The topic in question was her speaker’s volume.
“I am exhausted to argue with them,” she wrote on the video’s caption. “I don’t want to speak to anyone like this. But I had to protect my right as an artist in this way. All I want to do is just sharing my dance peacefully with people in this community.”
By early 2022, the petition was gaining traction but had stalled out at a little over 3,000 signatures — well short of the 5,000 Kusajami had set as a goal. She continued to perform and document more encounters with park rangers and share them on her Instagram stories. In July of 2022, she finally made a breakthrough.
The staff of City Council member Christopher Marte, who represents Manhattan’s Community District 1, got in touch with her. After some back and forth e-mails, a Zoom call was arranged between Kusajima, three other street performers, a resident who lives in an apartment near the park, a writer from NY magazine, and Ian Wang, a member of Marte’s staff. (Marte himself was not present during the Zoom meeting.)
“That was a big progress for me,” says Kusajimai of the meeting. “For me, as an ordinary street performer, it was a big thing that a person from city council at least listened to us. They finally opened their ears.”
In the Zoom call, which was recorded with a few parts posted on Instagram by Kusajima, the street performers shared their own experiences and perspective. One emphasized the importance of amplified sound for buskers, saying that if they are allowed (with specific regulations regarding volume and location) within the subways, why can’t public parks have the same? Another shared his harrowing experience with police officers. One Saturday back in April 2022, he was playing drums while another performer used his iPad to play music through a small speaker. He said that they were “cuffed hard.” The second performer was slammed against a truck and bled. They had their shoes stripped and they were put in a cell. The first performer was held for 6 hours (“…because I was non-stop [asking them] like, ‘What’re you people doing?!” he said). The second performer was held overnight.
The resident, who’s lived in the area all her life, is in support of the buskers and performers, saying that they add to the “explosion of energy” within the park, especially in recent years. She wants a set of standards and expectations from law enforcement for the safety of the buskers.
Wang presented a short-term solution: that he would be willing to speak with the 6th precinct’s officers and ask them to be more considerate when enforcing the sound rules.
“They don’t have to write summonses for everyone who uses the amplifier,” he says in the call. “It’s just right now, the law states they have individual discretion to do that.”
The fine for violating any of the sound device rules, according to American Legal Publishing’s Code Library, is no more than $100, imprisonment for 30 days or both.
For the long-term solution, which would be a legislative move, Wang has promised to set up another call to discuss it.
Wang did not respond to e-mails from this reporter asking for comments and updates on the situation. But Kusajima is still grateful for the effort and wants to continue working with Marte and his staff.
WHILE THE WHEELS of law enforcement reform turn very slowly, there are other beacons of solace for performers.
ChaShaMa is a non-profit organization that provides spaces for artists to showcase their work. This means partnering with property owners to transform unused real estate into stages, exhibits, classes and pop-up shops. According to the organization’s website, they “present 150 events a year, have workspace for 120 artists, and have developed 80 workshops in under served communities.”
Under ChaShaMa’s sponsorship, Kanami Kusajima showcased her ink dancing at a large space at the Port Authority Bus terminal from September to November of 2022.
Commuters and travelers would either slow down to catch a glimpse or pause entirely to watch and take in the entrancing performance.
Additionally, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) has a program called MTA MUSIC (Music Under New York) to enhance the transit environment for commuters and passengers. The program holds a yearly audition in the spring to add performers to its roster of more than 350 since its inception in 1985.
IT’S BEEN TWO YEARS since Kusajima took a risk and began ink dancing in public. Since the city is now opening up and Covid-19 is more or less receding, more opportunities to share her craft have come her way and she’s seized each one with enthusiasm.
In the summer of 2022, she returned to Japan, where she was invited to dance at yosemic PUB “SOY-POY” by yosemic, an artist community that is located in both NYC and Tokyo. She also tried her ink dancing on the streets of Tokyo. She has danced for the Neon Circus NYC, a circus act and variety show run by a former street performer. In addition, Kusajima is a dance mentor for a program called PIZARTS Dance Gap Year where she teaches improvisational dance, which allows students to “explore the possibilities of their own bodies without being afraid of being judged or being graded.” And, of course, she had her ChaShaMa gig, which ended in November of 2022.
But just because she’s busy with more work now doesn’t mean that Kusajima is going to stop street performing. Furthermore, she’s definitely not going to stop advocating for herself and her fellow street performers at Washington Square Park, which she calls “the birthplace of my confidence in my dance.”
“I feel like this community raised me as a performer,” she says.
New York City may not make it easy for them, but street performers will never stop being a part of its culture. The complicated rules and regulations, the unpredictability of the money and the harassment from law enforcement won’t stop them from sharing their art and talent. Whether they’re on the sidewalk, on the subway or in the parks, rest assured that performers and buskers are here to stay and they’re determined to share their joy with anyone who appreciates them.