Berkeley inspires global movement

By JESSICA GREENE and ERIKA OKANO

original article

Matt Haber/dance anywhere

Don’t be surprised if you see some people dancing in the streets of the Bay Area today.

Today is Dance Anywhere Day — a global movement for anyone, everywhere to get moving. It started in Berkeley six years ago and has spread to a worldwide party. Now people in other states participate and countries as far away as Turkey, Australia, Sweden and Ireland get dancing shoes on as part of the performance.

From the movement’s Web site:

Dance Anywhere addresses the need for accessible, public art that enriches communities and introduces new audiences to art; dance anywhere benefits our communities by offering free performances that are visible and welcome to passersby; by welcoming people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to participate, dance anywhere connects diverse groups, and builds community through art.

A Google map is nearly covered in blue with dots pointing out where the spontaneous dancing is planned in the Bay Area. (Can you plan and still be spontaneous?) The idea is that people will stop at the exact same time and just start dancing.

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates proclaimed today Dance Anywhere Day. The official start time for the Bay Area’s dance is noon.

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — If you saw someone break out into spontaneous or organized dance Friday, you can thank a San Francisco woman for it.

Six year ago today, Beth Fein took her love for dance to a new level and started what she called the annual Dance Anywhere Day.

She celebrated with friends at Grant and Geary at noon Friday.

Dance Anywhere Day has now gone international, with reports of people as far away as Estonia participating.

by Rachel Holdt

[original article]

Kara Davis & Nol Simonse
photo, Matt Haber

Six years ago today, Beth Fein conceptualized the idea of involving dance in the everyday lives of people across the country and globe at the same time. Now proclaimed by the city of Berkeley, California’s mayor, Tom Bates, March 26, 2010 is Dance Anywhere Day.

Here in California, noon is the time to vacate your cubicle, adjourn the meeting, put the Power Point on pause, stop the lecture, un-hand the dish towel, call a short recess and enjoy the movement that is so intrinsically human by dancing wherever you are! Across the globe, the invitation is extended to join in this celebration of the freedom and expressions that dance can bring. To enjoy together the art form that permits the broader expansion of communication through a language of the body is something that not many get to enjoy. Fein created this day for this very purpose.

Perhaps a turn or hip circle is all it will take. For those of you a bit more adventurous, involve some co-workers or neighbors. A website is set up to register your location at http://www.danceanywhere.org/ . Pictures, video and experiences are encouraged to be shared and you can sign up for email updates as well as enjoy the media that streams in from across the planet.

As we all enjoy this wonderful intermission of public performance, take the time to search out local dance performances in your local area. With the economy in such precarious uncertainty, it is definitely a time when a form of art expression such as dance can use your support. For local performances in the Temecula Valley area, please see http://www.temeculatheater.org/ or follow along at http://www.examiner.com/x-15935-Temecula-Dance-Examiner.

Enjoy your dance; however you choose to express it!

Continue reading on Examiner.com: Dance Anywhere 2010 – Los Angeles Dance | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/dance-in-los-angeles/dance-anywhere-2010#ixzz1D3vn0OWb

By Becca Klarin

[original article]

This Friday at Noon (Pacific Daylight Time), drop what you’re doing (unless you’re carrying a baby or driving heavy machinery) and boogie. Or better yet, check out the dance anywhere events happening in your neck of the woods. dance anywhere is exactly that: people dancing wherever they are at the same time: noon here in San Francisco, 3PM in New York, 8PM in Paris, etc.

What: dance anywhere
Where: Worldwide; in San Francisco, performances include but are not limited to site-specific dance at

* 10 South Park Street
* SFMOMA
* Geary and Grant toward the Togonon Gallery at 77 Geary Street
* The Asian Art Museum
* The SF Veterans Affairs Medical Center at 4150 Clement Street

When: Friday, March 26, 2010, 12PM
Tickets: Free

The purpose of dance anywhere, which is in its sixth year, is to bring “everyone’s attention to their immediate environment and brings awareness to the change that dance and art brings as it converges with their day.” It’s “about shifting assumptions and heightened awareness, and generating dance anywhere and everywhere simultaneously.”

Beth Fein, the creator of dance anywhere, talked with me about the scope of this project and what to expect should you wisely substitute dance anywhere for your weekly nooner.

How did you get involved in creating dance anywhere and what should audiences expect on the day?

It started one night when I had gone to see a modern dance performance (I go to a lot because I know people who are performing or choreographing), and on the way home, talking to my friends about how fleeting the performance is and how much of the art is in the practice and the preparation. That’s where the idea came from; the validation of dance and all of its aspects, but it’s really become a public art project. Instead of having a sculpture or installation or something, it’s a public art project that happens for a brief amount of time and then it’s not there in that environment anymore. Then it changes into something else like the photos or videos.

How many cities is dance anywhere in?

You know, I can’t even keep the website updated! I can give you a list of countries! Or are you more interested in cities?

Countries are great, too! I’m just trying to wrap my head around the scope of the project.

It’s so open, and it’s accessible to everyone which is part of the idea of it. I have dancers in Iceland, Canada, Mexico, Italy, France, Spain, Indonesia, Turkey, Costa Rica, Egypt. There’s more… Estonia! I forgot Estonia. Oh, Namibia. That’s a new one this year. States: California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Wyoming, Minnesota, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Illinois, Idaho, Alabama, New York… Oh, and Argentina! That’s another country [involved]… The thing about the project is that I don’t always know where people are dancing. A lot of people participate without telling me. They here about it and they just do it. There’s a whole contingent that I may not be aware of.

I was looking at the Google map of participants that you have, and I’m taken surprised by the amount of participants in Utah!

you know, it could be because the University of Utah has a good dance department, and it could be that someone sparked something there.

It’s a neat cluster to see.

And we’ve been getting so many in every day, and I’m not able to keep up because it’s mostly volunteer. I probably have another 50 or so to add.

How does the process work if you’re a dancer, choreographer, or group? Do they contact you?

I try to get them to contact me because I want to list them on the website, include a link to their website, and tell the press where they’re performing. And there are a few where, in the last few years…, the SFMOMA, Asian Art Museum, and the Berkeley Art Museum have generously hosted dance anywhere and they’re doing so this year, and in these cases I’ll invite a choreographer whose appropriate [to perform in these spaces]. But people are free to, if they come up with an idea, act somewhere else! I try to get them to tell me through Facebook or my website.

This year I have a couple of artists who teach in the school and they are Kala Art Institute artists. They’re doing a dance at Thornhill Elementary School, and they’re actually having the kids do a dance based on how the planets move in the solar system and then they’ll do pinhole photography and have the students make drawings. I think they have almost 70 third graders doing that.

So they’re starting ‘em young…

I know, and then sometimes I’ll get an entire school to dance!….I’ve had an elementary school in San Francisco dance. A lot of times they [the schools] don’t send me photographs because of privacy issues. This year, I’ve added in this other element where I”m asking people if they’d prefer to do a drawing or write a poem or make a few comments so that I get something back from them.

What’s it like the day of, so to speak, if you’re in the audience?

It’s usually a surprise! I’ve done it. The last few years, I’ve danced in Berkeley. This year, I’m dancing on Geary Street in San Francisco at the Togonon Gallery. People are going to be walking by and see these dancers. The way I usually work it is that we’re in our position and still for maybe five minutes before we begin to get attention and then we start to dance. For instance, the video from 2008 at the SFMOMA [see top of the page]: they just walked in. They just walked in and started dancing, and you can see that at first people don’t even notice them! It’s kind of exciting that then people start to notice you and their whole sense of their space changes. Last year my dancers and I were on the pedestrian bridge on Highway 80, and that was absolutely fabulous because it was like we were on this high stage over the freeway and immediately, the traffic started to notice and honk at us.

How can you not notice that?

I guess someone asked an observer if this was a protest and they were like no, this is a dance!

View dance anywhere 2010 in a larger map

Looking forward to next year, are you looking to grow the project? Do you need specific resources to get there?

Oh, I wrote a lot of grants this year, but I didn’t get too many. It’s been a hard year. I do receive private donations and I’m an artist, so I sell my artwork to support it. I’d love to grow [it], and being I’m a visual artist, I’d love to get more museums and galleries be interested in having dance coming into their spaces… You know I still get surprised. Someone will send me a photo. I got one one year of just an office dancing in New York. I have no idea who they are. There’s a video of some office workers at San Jose State [see below] who danced and shot a video. I’d love more of that.

To celebrate ‘dance anywhere’ day, the Dandelion Dancetheater of San Francisco took to the Rockridge BART station and gave the public a free show. DANCE ANYWHERE DAY: Drop What You’re Doing And Dance!

watch the video: http://www.ktvu.com/video/22971742/index.html

As a fairly cynical short-attention-span-generation type, I am always amazed how much seeing live dance gets me all choked up.  This is the third year in a row the SFMOMA Atrium’s been host to an impromptu Dance Anywhere performance. Two years ago Kara Davis and Nol Simonse performed a duet.  Last year there were three dancers.  Today Kara was back, this time with her group Project Agora.

Thanks to Ian, our social media maven, for the video! More, from all three performances, here.

[original article]

what if the whole world paused to dance?

that is what artist beth fein is asking. today, march 26, at noon in san francisco, 3pm in new york/philadelphia, 6pm in paris, etc. she wants everyone to stop what they’re doing, wherever they are, and start dancing. any form of dance  even if you think you can’t dance at all. her goal is to blur the line that separates art and dance from our daily lives, and bring awareness to this art form that we are all free to express.  sounds like a brilliant idea to me. if you think about it, why should the joyous act of dancing be confined to certain spaces and times? i think it would improve your every day to let yourself go and dance no matter who is watching.

if you see anyone participate, or if you yourself choose to, let me know

[original article]

photo by Matt Haber

I absolutely adore the idea of Dance Anywhere.

Dance Anywhere is an annual project that begins with a simple premise an open invitation for people to stop and dance at 12 noon, PSD. Participants are encouraged to take photos and video, which are then shared on the Dance Anywhere Web site and used to inspire visual art projects. We want YOU to participate! Dancers of all levels, abilities, ages, and backgrounds (and people with no dance experience at all!) are welcome.

These kinds of events truly resonate deep within my dancer soul on a very profound level. What I love about these type of events is heightening the awareness that we are all dancers! We can all enjoy the delights of moving our body.

Years ago when I lived in Marin County, I had the absolute pleasure to study with Anna Halprin and participate in her marvelous dance ritual called Planetary Dance. Inspired by this experience, I co-founded a dance festival in Dallas called Dance for the Planet which still lives on! The mission of this festival is to bring out the dancer in everyone.

So, on March 26, 2010, thousands of people worldwide will stop what they’re doing and dance at 12 pm in San Francisco, 3 pm in New York, 8 pm in Paris or Rome, and so on around the world. Dance your own happy dance and feel your connection to the other dancing souls on our planet.

Beth Fein founded Dance Anywhere in 2005 in Berkeley, CA. This event has now expanded to include people from around the U.S., and as far away as Argentina, Turkey, Italy, France, and Australia.

In her own words, Beth’s idea for this happening is:

to bring everyone’s attention to their immediate environment and brings awareness to the change that dance and art brings as it converges with their day.

Dance Anywhere is about shifting assumptions and heightened awareness, and generating dance anywhere and everywhere simultaneously.

The concept for Dance Anywhere blurs the line that separates art and dance from our daily lives. This is art that does not need to be on a stage.

Dance Anywhere is about the transformation of familiar and ordinary locations.

You can participate by creating a dance, a simple phrase, an improvisation, a choreographed work, take a photo, shoot a video, create a drawing or other artwork, or write a poem!

To sign up and for all the scoop, visit www.danceanywhere.org.

In the spirit of these community dance happenings, and since it is Happy Friday which is The Happy Book day over at Jamie Ridler’s blog, here are some videos which make me happy and celebrate the sheer joy and power of people coming together to DANCE!

“Dance Anywhere founder Beth Fein led a group of dancers amid paintings and sculpture by Constance Harris and photographs by Marion Gray.

[original article with photo gallery]

[original post]