A moment was declared last Friday as people from all over the world, regardless of ethnicity or age, stopped and danced for the 8th annual Dance Anywhere event.

It didn’t matter if one was a professionally trained dancer or not, whether the routine was choreographed in advance or improvised and whether it was accompanied by music or not; people from all parts of the world took part in what was known as Dance Anywhere 2012.

According to Dance Anywhere’s official website, the ultimate goals for as to why Dance Anywhere takes place annually is to create communities by having people participate in an arts-oriented public event, have people get easier access to the art form of dancing and to create different points of view through these types of events.

One of the characteristics that makes Dance Anywhere community-oriented on a global scale is that the time to dance happens simultaneously. 

According to the official website, Dance Anywhere was first created in 2005 by dancer and visual artist Beth Fein.  Fein came up with the concept as an attempt to erase the line separating the actual practice of dance — referring to classes and rehearsals — and the non-traditional view of dance as an art form and way of self expression all on its own.

One of many locations where a Dance Anywhere performance took place was in the lobby at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco. 

At the stroke of noon, museum attendees stopped and watched as the Anne Bluethenthal and Dancers (ABD) Company descended their way down a staircase in the middle of the room, accompanied by the a cappella vocals of singer MamaCoatl. 

According to ABD’s official website, the dance company is primarily known for putting on multicultural, feminist dances to bring about the inclusiveness of all its members in spirit and passion.  In which case in their 15-minute performance, they did just that.

ABD performed two dance routines to mark the occasion. 

One was a lesbian love duet from a piece called  “GOIN’ GAGA: Musings on Street Queer and Bad Romancing by a Post Modern Romantic Middle-aged Jewish Lesbian Mother and her Spiritually Transgendered Dance Daughters,” a piece that focuses on the relationship between feminists and the queer community.

 The other piece performed was an excerpt from a piece called “Pluto in Capricorn” where a trio of dancers elaborated into their routine a visual representation of aging, personal collapse and heartbreak colliding with the economic woes.

The audience was very intrigued with their eloquent, well-choreographed dance performance that ABD was thanked with a round of applause after it ended.

According to artistic director Bluethenthal herself, this was her company’s first time performing for Dance Anywhere.

“We were delighted to be at SF MOMA — such a gorgeous location, a great audience and we had fun being both reverent and irreverent within its walls,” Bluethenthal said.

Bluethenthal went on to say how ABD has been putting on urban street art in various parts of San Francisco for the past few years in an experiment called “A Year of Guerilla Art: 50 Random Acts of Dancing” and that Dance Anywhere served as another opportunity to do so.

“We are very dedicated to creating new economies of art and new venues that stretch the boundaries of the art form and that make art an everyday, accessible fact of life — everywhere,” Bluethenthal said.