Trolley Dances Give Transit a Twist In 1998, Jean Isaacs, one of San Diego's pioneering choreographers, could not afford a theater for her new dance company's performances. So she engineered an unlikely partnership with the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System, and turned the city's streets into her stage. The Trolley Dances, born of that marriage, is now a San Diego tradition, celebrating its 15th anniversary this weekend and Oct. 5 to 6. The popularity of the San Diego performances inspired spinoffs in San Francisco, which marks its 10th anniversary on Oct. 19 to 20, and, more recently, in Riverside, an inland city of more than 300,000 residents about 60 miles from Los Angeles, which held its first Trolley Dances last year and will present its second on Oct. 19. Trolleys look and mean something different in each of these cities. Riverside's trolleys, which mostly shuttle students and jurors, resemble San Francisco's classic trolley cars. The San Diego trolley system is basically the city's light-rail system given a cute name and painted a playful red. For tourists, who often find California's proud car culture unwelcoming and difficult to penetrate, the Trolley Dances offer a fresh take on three unique cities through the lens of dance, guiding audience members through each one's hidden nooks and crannies, as well as popular landmarks. For residents, the event offers new insight into a hometown that so often blurs by. "I thought I knew San Diego, but every year I'm discovering a new part of it," said Ms. Isaacs, a resident of the Pacific Coast city for 42 years. The concept works like this: Audience members board a trolley at a designated trolley station and are guided by volunteers to various stops along the route where mini dance performances, each about 10 minutes long and each created by a different choreographer, pop up in unexpected places, incorporating and responding to their physical environment. If there's a fountain, the dance might take place inside it. If there's a fence, dancers are sure to climb it. Past sites have included the produce aisle of a supermarket, a boardroom in a downtown hotel and even the border fence separating the United States and Mexico. This year, the San Diego tour highlights the revitalization of Barrio Logan, south of downtown, and the East Village, a neighborhood that has become a creative hub. Performance sites include Chicano Park, a historically and culturally significant public space under the Coronado Bridge; the new Monarch School, which serves homeless children; and San Diego's just-finished Central Library. The San Diego itinerary, which features 45 dancers, makes the various neighborhoods "less sectioned off," Ms. Isaacs said. It's all part of the same energy. The organizers in all three cities praise their transit partners for being game for such an unusual collaboration. "In transit, we're always looking to something to draw people's attention," said Paul Jablonski, the chief executive of San Diego's transit system, "to try to get them to use it, to show the community that we're part of the community." Logistically, working with the transit system is often the easy part. "The beast of the program is getting the sites, the permitting process, and getting insurance for the day of the event and the rehearsals," said Sue Roginski, the organizer of the Riverside Trolley Dances. Everything is so detailed. So much so that Ms. Roginski had to scramble to complete the Riverside Trolley Dances route when she lost a prime site because of unforeseen construction. For San Diego and Riverside, a goal of the Trolley Dances is to get car-obsessed consumers to sample local public transit. But up in San Francisco, where public transit is widely used and the trolley line is already packed with tourists, the event - which unlike the other two is free with purchase of a transit ticket - is looking to venture farther outside the city center. Kim Epifano, the local choreographer who, with Ms. Isaacs's blessing, took Trolley Dances to the Bay Area, has given audiences capoeira at the Bayview Opera House and synchronized swimming at Balboa Park in San Francisco. This year, in honor of its 10th anniversary, San Francisco Trolley Dances returns to its roots. The tour begins at the Market Street Railway Museum across from the Ferry Building at the Embarcadero, and travels up Market Street to offbeat performance spots along the way, like the headquarters of the local electrical workers union and the First Baptist Church. "I'll go to a hot spot and then drag you on the line to a place you'd never go," Ms. Epifano said. About 3,000 people purchase tickets and take the Trolley Dances tours in San Diego each year. In San Francisco, the event has upward of 4,000 spectators, while the Riverside Trolley Dances, still in its infancy, has managed to attract hundreds of guests. Among all those viewers, there are those who show up year after year, aware of the adventure in store, and those who simply stumble into the action. For those who think of ballet and "The Nutcracker" when it comes to dance, the idea of site-specific performances is eye-opening, said Ms. Roginski, of the Riverside Trolley Dances. "This project feels very accessible and inclusive," she said.