It’s a damp Wednesday evening in October and inside a historic five-story building just south of bustling Astor place, Manhattan’s latest exciting venue yawns itself awake. The unmarked door out front opens to a stark red-lit hallway with iridescent glitter flooring. At the end of the entryway, a piece of construction paper leaned against the wall reads simply, “THE DANCE”. Turning the corner into the Sparkle Room, you can see folks head-bobbing to punk beats blaring from the speakers while others mingle along the left bar that has a mirrored-tile backdrop like someone flattened out a discoball. The spirit is similar to what you might find on a Friday night at a space in Ridgewood or Bushwick. “I feel like a lot of people think Manhattan is over,” says Billy Jones, head honcho of The Dance and co-owner of music venue Baby’s All Right. “They often asked me, ‘Where can you even dance there anymore?’ But I began to notice people still wanted a space in the city where they could feel safe and comfortable to experiment and try new things. I really didn’t have an answer for them of where that could be until now.” In the multi-room venue there are a total of three performance spaces: one by the entry bar, the main 350-capacity room that coalesces the club, and another upstairs space with a disco ball and additional bar. While The Dance officially opened at the end of 2019, a wide swath of secret, but erupting, gigs went on here starting in September through late fall, featuring t