dance anywhere

[original article]

I’m DJing tomorrow:
9am – noon PST, Sunday, April 26
KALX Berkeley 90.7fm

I might sound a little husky on the air, as I’m in the midst of battling my third bout of illness in as many months. I stayed home from work yesterday to make sure I didn’t infect my coworkers with the plague. I was bummed I was going to miss the Dance Anywhere performance I had planed to sneak out to at SFMOMA, part of dancer Beth Fein’s plan to have people around the world drop everything at noon yesterday and dance wherever they were to kick off National Dance Week. But then I remembered Fein herself was supposed to be doing a piece on the pedestrian bridge above 80 in Berkeley not so far from my home, so I wrapped myself in a blanket and hurried down there. At noon on the dot a dozen dancers divided into two groups on opposite sides of the bridge unfurled umbrellas against the wind and slowly moved across the span, freezing every few steps into a tableau of elegant poses. The reaction from the cars on the freeway below was instantaneous, with people honking and slowing down to watch, so much so that a small traffic jam developed in the westbound direction. As I stood there smiling a man approached me and asked, “What are they protesting?” “They’re not protesting,” I replied. “They’re dancing.”