Kut The Rug Institute (KTRi) is a BK based consulting practice that collaborates with artists, scholars, cultural bearers and organizations to archive, present, and honor Street & Club Dance forms indigenous to NYC. Our goal is to advance the conversation and information available about Street & Club Dance forms that were innovated in Lenapehoking. We produce, curate & present art projects, conversations, workshops, and research to expand the how the public considers and encounters Club & Street Dance Culture. KTRi was established in 2019 by three Club Dancers on Planet Brooklyn; where its headquarters are currently located.

Dance to Remember

Everybody wants to dance our dance but none will walk in our shoes. 

Six Step over the blood on the dancefloor. 

Beats and breaks. Beatings and broken: 

My heart. In hard times. Ain’t no love to be found. 

The horror is supreme. Sample the sound. 

Ain’t no hiding place. Danger is all around. 

Trying to watch my back got me spinning like the ghost of James Brown.

 Say it loud. We all know the tune.

Everyone wants to sing our songs, but nobody wants to live the blackest blues.

Want to feel our funk but not breathe the fumes. 

Can’t have the groove without the grime. 

The gut bucket is just that. Hard singing for harder lives. 

We work songs like a chain gang. Shackles on my Adidas in neon and ‘New Black’. 

Still slaves to the rhythm trying to get free on tracks. 

“No more… my Lord…”. The years like Jordan roll. 

Air in our souls because we still want to fly away home. 

Oh glory, when is this life over? Started from the bottom and we’re still here. 

Started at the top. Our footprints made to disappear. 

We dance to remember what you fear. 

We dance to remember what we were before we were here. 

-Brian Polite