New documentary offers an insider’s look at turf dancing on BART

This documentary will make you smile, guaranteed. In this film produced by Youth Radio, young dancers take over BART in a dance style known as “turfing” and tell us all about why they do it. For the last few years, BART riders have been sending us videos of these amazing contortionists, and now you can see things from the dancers’ own perspective.

Dancers iDummy, Slow Motion, and C4 Boom carefully plan their public performances — they used to perform on Powell Street, but after businesses complained about amplified sound, they took their performance to BART (and we’re glad they did!). These days they perform on BART, mostly between West Oakland and San Francisco, to the delight of surprised passengers.

In the documentary, the dancers say that their biggest reward is to turn a frown upside down, and you can see this in the riders’ faces as they realize that a performance is taking place. Amusingly (and so very San Francisco), the dance crew told Youth Radio that though they pass around a donation hat, they’ve also received bottles of wine, packs of incense, body oils, and even leg warmers as donations.

So pause your day for a few minutes and let this documentary make your day.

One comment

  • DailyBartRiderSince1994

    What a load of crap. These guys get on the train late at night when people are commuting home from a long day at work, spending 3+ hours commuting home tired and with a headache after pulling a 10+ hour shift trying to take a nap and they put their speaker right in your face, turn it all the way up on full blast and laugh at you. These guys aren’t trying to cheer anyone up. They’re a bunch of selfish jerks who don’t respect anyone around them. These guys are scumbags and so is anyone who supports them. Idiot mouth-foaming liberal hipsters from out of town ruining the bay. I miss the old days when we didnt have these idiots back in the 90s

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