The NYPD dance team walks to the beat and feels it

Officer Lauren Pagán looked at the line of dancers in the overheated cafeteria of a Queens high school on a recent Monday night and frowned.

They twirled through the movements they were choreographed for “Mamacita,” a pulsating, Reggaeton-like song by the Black Eyed Peas and Ozuna. She had told the dancers to count to eight as they walked the steps, but they danced in silence. The hip movements, arm movements and knee lifts seemed graceful, but to her eyes, the six women in front of her seemed out of sync.

“Nobody’s listening here, I see,” said Officer Pagán, the vice president of the New York Police Department’s dance team. She turned the music back on and ordered the dancers to count. This time they obeyed.

The seven-member team has mastered hip-hop and salsa and plays with bachata and bhangra, the fast, energetic movements derived from the traditional folk dance of India’s Punjab region. The group is figuring out how to fold step and pom, in which dancers wave pom-poms while synchronizing their movements.

But what they really need are recruits to fill out a robust, diverse roster of at least twenty dancers who can travel and compete against other groups, ideally other officers (although they would like to dance against paramedics and firefighters).

The dance team, which was founded in 2022, is part of about four dozen competitive groups within the department, including traditionally macho squads such as NYPD Paintballthe NYPD Rugby Football Club And the NYPD pistol squad.

Employees of the department have left. There is a chess club, yoga is popular and there is interest in starting a reading group and even a knitting circle, according to inspector Mark Wachter. He heads the department’s health and wellness unit, which approves applications. Members of the dance team hope that more of their brothers in blue will find the rhythm in it.

“We’re not looking for top professionals,” said Officer Autumn-Raine Martinez, who works in crime analysis at the 108th Precinct and is the team’s president. “We’re just looking for people who want to dance.”

In September, on the department’s Fraternal Day, when all clubs were looking for recruits for the Police Academy, 33 people signed up to try out for the dance team, Officer Pagán said. Three were men trying to enroll their daughters.

Last fall, when the dancers performed their Halloween song, a school security officer walked into the room, drawn to the sound of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” He said he and his identical twin brother would be interested in participating.

“He was so excited,” Officer Pagán said. “And we never heard from him again.”

She suspects that men are afraid of being mocked. The group’s original emblem — a teal silhouette of a lithe dancer mid-leap — didn’t help.

“They look like fifth graders,” Officer Pagán said. “They saw a ballerina and said, ‘Ew.'”

The team redesigned the emblem – the name in simple block letters – but kept the teal.

The groups’ schedule is intensive, which is difficult for police officers who work long hours.

The dancers rehearse twice a week for two hours: Monday at the high school and Thursday in a hall for veterans of foreign wars in Massapequa, Long Island, where the bartender offers them screwdrivers (which they refuse). They perform at parades, schools, community fairs and during halftime during matches of other police sports teams.

The expectation is that the members will make it to rehearsals and shows, said officer Pagán, 39. She refuses to beg anyone to join her.

“I’m damn near 40,” she said. ‘I’m not going after anyone. Is this what I have to do to get you to come to the practice? I shouldn’t be chasing anyone.”

Especially considering the dedication of the team.

Detective Jessica Gutierrez came to practice in the school cafeteria while nursing a case of conjunctivitis, which she had been hiding all day with a pair of sunglasses she kept on during rehearsal. Officer Martinez arrived after 12 hours of work from 5 a.m. Sgt. Benely Santos was scheduled to work a night shift at the 111th Precinct after training.

The group rehearsed ‘Mamacita’ over and over again in the stifling heat.

Sergeant Santos, who manages the team’s Instagram accountsaid the constant repetition required mental toughness.

“We did a Pitbull song,” she said. “I was done. I deleted it from my phone. Goodbye, Pitbull.

The women vary in age – from 26 to 42 – and experience. Sergeant Santos was a novice when she joined.

Officer Martinez, on the other hand, has been dancing since she was four, but is plagued by her height. As a girl, she tried out for the role of Nala in the Broadway cast of “The Lion King,” but she was too tall to make the cut. Later, when she considered auditioning for the Rockettes as a teenager, she couldn’t: At 6 feet tall, she was an inch away from the minimum height requirement at the time.

Officer Alyssa Blenk, 32, who danced competitively in high school and college, joined the team when she saw photos of it on Instagram. Her desire to be part of a crew was especially strong after the stress she felt due to the pandemic and the protests that erupted in New York in 2020 following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

“I have to do this,” she thought when she saw the Instagram posts.

On this evening in Queens, the team had a prospect, Officer Troy Safi, 43. She walked to the back of the line and listened intently as Officer Martinez walked her through the motions.

Soon she was moving in unison with the other women, sliding and weaving as if she had been practicing for weeks instead of minutes.

Officer Martinez screamed in delight.

“You can tell she’s trained in ballet,” Agent Pagán muttered.

Officer Safi, who had indeed trained classically, said she hoped to dance with the group again. But a few weeks later, Officer Pagán said, Officer Safi told the team that the schedule was too tough.

Officer Pagán, unwilling to let such a promising dancer go, agreed to a compromise.

“She’ll have to come over every now and then,” she said. “We want her so bad.”

The dream, Officer Pagán said, is a dedicated group whose drive could rival some of the department’s best-known teams.

Think about it, she said the NYPD best hockey clubwhich fills arenas with screaming fans and has such an intense rivalry with the fire team that a brawl broke out during a charity game in 2014.

The NYPD dance team isn’t looking for a fight, Officer Martinez said. But, she added, if the fire department starts a dance team, “it’s happening.”