That Wall Street Journal article is an example of New York snobbery - snide, condescending and willing to be inaccurate to score a point. For example, I doubt if the 13 spectators were baffled by the performance. No doubt they had heard of humans dancing to music before.

When the September 11th attacks occurred in 2001, we were all truly horrified and grieving. But there's a satirical paper called The Onion which let the proper amount of time pass, and then it published an article headed:

"Nation feels temporary sympathy for New York."

The article above shows you why.