Meet the ballerina hippos in Midtown Manhattan

MANHATTAN (PIX11) --- Normally when New Yorkers want to see ballet they might head to Lincoln Center, but new statue installments in Midtown Manhattan give pedestrians the chance to check out some animals striking a pose.

Two tutu-clad hippo statues, along with one of a rhino in a harlequin outfit, were set up across the street from Grand Central on Monday. The statues were designed by artist Bjørn Skaarup.

"My animal sculptures are a celebration of life and nature and its many intriguing shapes and creatures," Skaarup said. "Each animal is thoroughly culturalized; representing human allegories or use manmade tools, all placed in peculiar and surreal encounters between nature and culture. The result is a group of bronze sculptures that combines the gracious and exclusive with the communicative, distorted, and humorous."

The sculptures will be in Pershing Square Plaza West through December. Hippo Ballerina - the hippopotamus not in the middle of a pirouette - weighs 2.5 tons. It was previously installed at Dante Park, in the Flatiron South Public Plaza and at the Girl Scouts of America building. It's more than 15 feet tall.