Bill Shannon plays in "Traffic"

Bill Shannon

It's just hot enough these days for a totally nutty--yet air-conditioned--diversion like Traffic, a presentation of Dance New Amsterdam. In this "transient specific performance," the audience rides a tour bus down lower Broadway as Crutchmaster Bill Shannon glides the streets, freestyling on his skateboard and custom-designed crutches. Looking like a scruffy East Village squatter turned cross-country skier, Shannon interacts with the congested downtown terrain and its pedestrians. DJ "The Wizard" Brian Coxx pumps the house music (just try sitting still!) and James Cloftfelter VJ "TopKill" (yeah...I know) works the visuals.

"Sometimes magical things happen that I would never have designed in a million years," Shannon said yesterday, before we set out on this grand improvisational journey. "Maybe something will happen, and maybe nothing will happen."

A couple of video monitors keep track of any action that might be outside your range of view. And Shannon is equipped to receive and send sound which, ideally, should allow you to hear his impromptu conversations with unsuspecting passersby. Yesterday, that last bit didn't work so well, but some moments were not only readable but completely magical and captivating. In one, a construction crew, admiring Shannon's moxie, threw him down their unfinished bottle of iced tea. In another, Shannon commandeered some public art sculpture for a moody impromptu solo, perfectly capturing its scrunched texture in his movement.

Traffic sets off from the lobby of Dance New Amsterdam (280 Broadway, near Chambers Street) today and tomorrow at 4:30.

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