The dancing took a break in 2020, but the Funk Parade will be back in 2021 with a “hybrid experience.”

The joyous U Street tradition full of music, dancing, and art was canceled this past May due to COVID-19, and with vaccine timelines still murky, organizers say there won’t be any physical parade or festival next year either. Instead, expect the now-familiar “virtual and smaller, socially distanced events.”

“While we’re disappointed we can’t bring Funk Parade back in its familiar format in 2021, we’re excited to work with our partners to showcase Black Broadway in fresh and innovative ways,” Jeffery Tribble, Jr. of The MusicianShip, the non-profit that puts on the Funk Parade, said in a press release Tuesday. “We’re committed to keeping the funk alive and celebrating the rich history of the U Street Corridor with everyone in our community.”

The “parade” will center around art, culture, and the legacy of Black Broadway and will feature a Funk Parade-themed beer produced by Aslin Beer Company in Herndon, Virginia (first done in 2019).

Partners for this year’s rendition will include the Ben’s Chili Bowl Foundation, Black Broadway on U, District Bridges, StreetMeetDC, and Eaton Workshop.

Beyond that, details right now remain sparse. Organizers told DCist/WAMU that more details will be announced after the new year.

This scaling down with a mix of virtual and in-person events is on par with how other local events are preparing for 2021. In November, the Cherry Blossom Festival announced that this coming year’s rendition will have no parade and a socially distant kite-flying event. The plan is still to run the Cherry Blossom 10 Miler, but exact details remain unknown. Currently, as the region sees rising COVID-19 case numbers, regional museums including Smithsonian institutions and the National Zoo remain closed.

The Funk Parade was first officially held in 2014 and has continued to be a beloved D.C. tradition. The event’s co- founder Justin Rood told DCist in 2015 the idea came to him in a dream. Until 2020, it was growing larger and more formalized every year. So much so that in 2018, the original founders Rood and Chris Naoum transferred responsibility of the festival to D.C.-based non-profit The MusicianShip.

And the Funk Parade is more about a mindset rather than just one event. As the founders told DCist in 2015, the “Funk Parade is a lot like life: The more you bring to it, the more you’ll get out of it.”