Annual Trolley Dances rolled out in and around S.F.’s Muni routes
Dance and transit united Sunday to lure, and transport, hundreds of people to a collection of free performances strung along San Francisco streets, parks and alleyways.
The roving audience saw dancers writhe and roll on bleachers at Golden Gate Park, as trapeze artists swung in the background. They witnessed a hip-hop dance troupe take over a South of Market alley, and Japanese drummers and dancers frolic outside Kezar Stadium.
And to get to all these places they took the N-Judah streetcar — plus the Muni bus substituting for it during repair work along the line.
The dance tour, known as San Francisco Trolley Dances, has been going on for 14 years, since the Epiphany Dance Theater borrowed the idea from San Diego. It employs regularly scheduled Muni trolleys or streetcars, and occasionally buses, to connect a series of uncommon performance sites spread around the city.
“It’s about using Muni, using the SFMTA, to piece San Francisco together,” said Josh Forcum, managing director of the event, referring to the Municipal Transportation Agency.
This year’s rendition of Trolley Dances featured seven groups of performers doing
specially commissioned dances at different locations, most of them outdoors. The audience picked up free tickets and bought Muni tickets, if needed, at 10th and Mission streets.
The tour started with a traditional Tibetan dance at the California Institute of Integral Studies in the Mission, a hip-hop performance before a gray, blue and yellow mural on nearby Washburn Street, and a contemporary folk dance on Market Square behind the Twitter building.
From there the audience walked to the Muni Metro Civic Center Station, where they caught the N-Judah. They had to get off at Church Street and Duboce Avenue to board buses taking the N’s place.
The buses took them to Golden Gate Park, where they were greeted by a stilt-walker, singer and dancer. They watched dancers on the bleachers at the Circus Center, a training venue near the park, and saw a juggler using the Diabolo, or Chinese yo-yo, in front of the building. The event concluded with taiko drummers and dancers in a corner of the park.
The tour, heavily promoted on Muni, drew a lot of families, some of them repeat attendees.
Russ Vernick, 49, of San Francisco, attending his fourth Trolley Dances, said he appreciated that the tour is a “casual,” approachable event.
“Most people think dance and think Nutcracker, where you get dressed up, spend a lot of money and go into a big hall,” he said. “This is very accessible. It’s much more casual. It’s very San Francisco.”