Watch: More than 250 Kids in Extraterrestrial Performance at P.S. 89

P.S. 343's second and third grade Hip Hop classes perform a piece called "Starships." It was one of 22 numbers from 27 after-school dance classes, with costumes designed by Constance Tarbox. Other schools that participated were P.S. 276, P.S. 234, P.S. 89, P.S. 397 and P.S. 225 as well as the Downtown Community Center. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

“Night Sky,” the latest production of Manhattan Youth’s after-school programs, was not exactly dancing beneath the stars. But with more than 250 colorfully choreographed and costumed children appearing Saturday on the P.S. 89 stage, it was a stellar show all the same.

The 22 numbers, choreographed by the program’s 10 dance teachers and with titles like “Disco Planet,” “Parallel Universe” and “Greetings from Planet Weezy,” were meant to reflect the otherworldly theme of space.

Director Susan Kay said she got the idea after seeing the remarkable images of Pluto sent back from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft. “There was so much going on with Pluto and the outer space photos,” said Kay, who is Manhattan Youth’s coordinator of special events. “Visually it just seemed like there was a lot of potential there.”

And not just on stage. Unlike previous years (Manhattan Youth puts on a differently themed dance extravaganza every June), this show’s space theme was carried out in the nearby Downtown Community Center as well, involving children in many of the other after-school classes, from cooking to art to filmmaking. There were moon pies in the kitchen and outer space objects in the clay studio, “space” slime in the science room and space-based video games in the digital studio.

Just one caveat, Kay told the after-school teachers, fearing an onslaught of a certain extraterrestrial. “No Martians, please!”