Art & Wonder

Bronze Dance Steps-Rumba

47.6205° N, 122.3207° WOpen in maps ↗
Andrea’s Take

These are exactly the little details I love finding. Thousands of people walk Broadway without noticing that there's a 40-year-old dance lesson beneath their feet. Find a set, follow the numbers, and give it a try. Look down while walking Broadway on Capitol Hill and you may discover a dance lesson embedded right into the sidewalk. Artist Jack Mackie designed the Dancers' Series: Steps in 1979 as Broadway was undergoing a major streetscape renovation. Bronze artist Chuck Greening cast the footprints, and the completed works were dedicated in 1982. Eight sets survive along Broadway between East Pine and East Roy Streets, teaching the tango, waltz, Lindy, foxtrot weave, rumba and mambo with numbered bronze footprints, arrows, and left/right markings. Mackie also invented two dances specifically for the project: the Obeebo and the wonderfully Seattle-specific Busstop, inspired by the little movements people make while waiting for a bus. The project was an early product of Seattle's Percent for Art program and was intended to make the everyday pedestrian experience more interesting. Mackie developed the idea by watching people move along Broadway, later saying the steps couldn't have worked anywhere else in the city.