DANCE FILM NEWS  |  LITE FEET  |  STREET DANCE CULTURE

Get Lite: Teyana Taylor Brings Harlem’s Lite Feet Culture to the Big Screen — And Dance Mogul Magazine Will Be Following the Journey

Paramount has moved the Oscar-nominated performer’s feature directorial debut to August 20, 2027. Before a single frame is shot, the production is holding an open call in Harlem for the Lite Feet dancers, crews, tumblers and acrobats who built the culture the film is about.

By Dance Mogul Magazine Editorial Team  |  Published July 23, 2026

Part 1 of an ongoing series

The official Get Lite open call announcement | Source: @teyanataylor on Instagram

There is a difference between a film that borrows a dance culture and a film that goes looking for the people who created it. Get Lite, Teyana Taylor’s feature directorial debut for Paramount Pictures, is starting out on the second path — and it is doing it in Harlem, the neighborhood where Lite Feet was born and where Taylor herself grew up.

The production has announced an open call audition for dancers, and the language of that call matters. It is not asking for “hip-hop dancers” in the broad, catch-all way film productions often do. It is asking specifically for Lite Feet dancers and Lite Feet crews, New York street-style dancers, tumblers, acrobats and performers with specialty tricks. That is a casting sheet written by someone who knows what the culture actually looks like on a train platform at rush hour.

Dance Mogul Magazine has spent sixteen years documenting the artists who build movement culture from the ground up — often long before Hollywood learns their names. We intend to follow Get Lite from open call to opening weekend.

---

The Film: What Has Been Confirmed

Get Lite is Teyana Taylor’s first feature as a director. The project was first reported in March 2024, when it was announced as in development at Paramount Pictures with Storm Reid attached to star. Paramount later dated the film for a wide theatrical release, and in July 2026 the studio moved that date: Get Lite is now scheduled to open on August 20, 2027, shifting from its previously announced April 9, 2027 slot after Paramount’s newly acquired R-rated comedy Boys for Life took the spring release date. Trade reporting framed the move as a better fit — a dance film belongs to summer.

The story follows a talented but sheltered dance student who finds inspiration, love and a sense of family in the last place they expected: the New York City subway. Earlier reporting from 2024 described the premise in more detail — a studious New York teenager whose world is upended after falling for a charismatic beatmaker who recruits him into her Litefeet crew, forcing a choice between the life he was raised for and the one he is drawn to.

Storm Reid, known to audiences from Euphoria and The Last of Us, stars and also produces through her banner A Seed & Wings Productions alongside Robyn Simpson. Kenya Barris and Anni Weisband produce through Khalabo Ink Society, with Bill Karesh of Offbrnd also producing. Taylor serves as executive producer in addition to directing.

The film arrives during an extraordinary stretch for Taylor as a performer. Her work in Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another earned a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress plus recognition from SAG-AFTRA, BAFTA and the Academy Awards, and she received her first Grammy nomination for Escape Room. She steps behind the camera with more leverage than most first-time feature directors get — and she is spending it on a street dance story set in her own neighborhood.

---

The Open Call: Harlem, July 24

The open call is scheduled for Friday, July 24, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. in Harlem. Taylor announced it directly to dancers across all five boroughs on social media, framing it plainly as something done for the culture and asking performers to bring their own energy and style rather than a polished routine. The flyer closes with three words: represent New York.

The categories listed on the call are worth reading closely, because each one names a real discipline within New York street dance rather than a generic label:

• Lite Feet dancers — solo performers in the Harlem-born style
• Lite Feet crews — established teams, which suggests ensemble sequences rather than isolated features
• New York street-style dancers — the wider vocabulary of the city’s vernacular movement
• Tumblers and acrobatic performers — a direct nod to the flips and aerial work that live inside subway and platform performance
• Performers with specialty tricks — hat tricks, shoe tricks and signature individual skills

The inclusion of crews is the detail most worth noting. Crews are not interchangeable groups of hired dancers; they are years-deep creative units with their own names, histories, sounds and reputations. Casting crews rather than only individuals suggests the production may be building around real collectives instead of a look-alike ensemble assembled in a rehearsal room.

The Instagram announcement was shared as a collaboration with Kid the Wiz, one of the most internationally recognized figures in Lite Feet — a Bronx-born dancer and producer who reached national television on America’s Got Talent at 17 and whose tracks helped define the sound the dance moves to. Community figures being visible at the announcement stage, not just the promotional stage, is meaningful.

---

Lite Feet: A Harlem Original

Lite Feet — also called “getting lite,” and often written Litefeet — emerged from Harlem in the early 2000s. The name is credited to AG the Voice of Harlem, who coined the term in 1999 for a movement that was already forming in schoolyards, parks and house parties. The name describes the feeling of the dance: footwork so quick and buoyant that the dancer appears weightless.

The style absorbed and reshaped a run of New York social dances — the Harlem Shake, Chicken Noodle Soup, the Tone Wop, the Rev Up, the Aunt Jackie — and layered in shuffling, hat tricks and shoe tricks. It also grew its own music: fast, percussive beats built for the movement, many of them made by dancers. Artists connected to the W.A.F.F.L.E. crew, including Arnstar, Johno and Kid the Wiz, shaped that sound from inside the culture, and records born in the scene have traveled worldwide.

Within a few years the dance moved from parks to the trains, where performances became known as Showtime — a full act delivered in the ninety seconds between stations, on a moving floor, in a car full of strangers. Crews such as W.A.F.F.L.E. (We Are Family For Life Entertainment), MonzterInc, Brotherhood, Team Rocket and many others turned that constraint into a discipline of its own.

That visibility came at a real cost. In 2014, under a city administration committed to broken-windows enforcement, the NYPD made hundreds of arrests of subway performers — overwhelmingly young Black men — justified publicly in terms of risk rather than artistry. The dancers kept dancing. In the years that followed, Lite Feet artists were flown around the world for commercials, music videos and television.

---

From the Trains to the Screen: Why This Casting Call Matters

Dance history is full of moments where a film introduced a street style to the world and then moved on without the community that created it — leaving the dancers who built the vocabulary watching their own culture on screen without them in it. That is exactly why the wording of an open call is not a small thing.

Open calls have real career consequences. For dancers whose training happened on platforms and in community centers rather than in conservatory programs, a room like this is one of the few doors that opens without a gatekeeper, an agent or an audition fee. Performers have built long careers in film, television, commercial work, choreography and touring after walking into rooms exactly like this one.

One practical note for the dancers reading this: an open call is the start of a professional relationship, not a talent show. Come with a clear sense of what you do best, be ready to move in a small space, and treat contact information and follow-up as part of the audition.

---

Teyana Taylor’s Own Dance Roots

Taylor is not arriving at this material as a visitor. Her career began in dance and choreography at the start of the 2010s, and she has been directing visual work for years — including her own music videos and projects for other artists through The Aunties, the all-female production company she launched in 2017. She has moved from performer to choreographer to visual director to feature filmmaker along a path a lot of dancers recognize.

That trajectory is the same argument Dance Mogul Magazine has made since 2010: dancers are not support staff for other people’s visions. They are directors, producers, business owners, archivists and cultural authorities. When a dancer-turned-director makes her first feature about the street dance culture of her own city, that is not a coincidence of casting. That is what happens when movement artists are given creative control.

---

Why It Matters to Dance Mogul Magazine

Dance Mogul Magazine is a father and son Black owned dance publication founded in 2010, and our work has always centered on the artists who build culture rather than the industry that later monetizes it. Our coverage spans every corner of the ecosystem — from street dance and hip-hop to concert dance and commercial choreography — because movement culture does not respect the boundaries that media categories try to impose on it.

A film like Get Lite presents an opportunity and a responsibility at the same time. The opportunity is obvious: a major studio release can introduce Lite Feet to audiences who have never heard the name, and it can put working dancers on payroll and on screen. The responsibility belongs to publications like ours — to document who was actually in the room, who shaped the movement long before the cameras arrived, and whether the community stayed part of the story through release.

That is the work. Not just reporting the headline, but keeping the record. You can see how we approach it across our Exclusive Interviews archive, our Dance Styles Hub, and our Dance Knowledge Hub, where the history of these styles is organized for the dancers, educators and families who need it.

---

What Dance Mogul Magazine Will Be Tracking

This series will follow Get Lite through production and release. Our coverage will focus on:

• Casting outcomes and which dancers and crews are cast
• Choreography credits and who is leading movement on the film
• Production milestones, filming locations and official announcements
• Trailers, stills and studio marketing materials
• Interviews with dancers, choreographers and crew members, when available
• Release information and how the film performs in theaters
• The cultural history behind Lite Feet and New York’s subway dance tradition

We report verified information only. When something is unconfirmed, we say so plainly.

---

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Get Lite about?

Get Lite follows a talented but sheltered dance student who finds inspiration, love and a sense of family in the New York City subway, home of the city’s Lite Feet culture. Storm Reid stars; Teyana Taylor directs.

When does Get Lite come out?

Paramount Pictures has scheduled Get Lite for wide theatrical release on August 20, 2027. The film was previously dated for April 9, 2027 before the studio shifted it to the summer window.

What is Lite Feet dancing?

Lite Feet, also called “getting lite” or Litefeet, is a street dance style that emerged from Harlem in the early 2000s. It is built on rapid, buoyant footwork, hat and shoe tricks, and social dances including the Harlem Shake and Chicken Noodle Soup, and it carries its own music genre.

Who is Teyana Taylor?

Teyana Taylor is a Harlem-raised performer, choreographer, recording artist and director. She won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for One Battle After Another and earned her first Grammy nomination for the album Escape Room. She founded the production company The Aunties in 2017. Get Lite is her first feature as a director.

How can dancers audition for Get Lite?

The production announced an open call in Harlem, New York, on Friday, July 24, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., seeking Lite Feet dancers and crews, New York street-style dancers, tumblers, acrobats and specialty performers. The official flyer lists registration at getlitersvp.com. Always confirm details through official production channels before traveling.

---

Get Lite Teyana Taylor Lite Feet Litefeet Harlem Storm Reid Street Dance New York City Dance Dance Film Open Call Audition Subway Dancers Dance Film Tracker

---

© 2026 Dance Mogul Magazine LLC  |  dancemogul.com  |  Inspiring Self-Empowerment Through Dance Culture