Dance center celebrates 20 years in S.F.

Worlds collide at the corner of Seventh and Market streets. Across the United Nations Plaza is a weekly farmers' market. Up the street is the futuristic Federal Building. On the corner there's a check-cashing joint and a Chinese takeout place. Above it all, behind the ornate terra-cotta decorations on the 1909 Odd Fellows Building, is the Alonzo King Lines Dance Center, home to thousands of dancers and this year celebrating its 20th anniversary.

Founded in February 1989, the then San Francisco Dance Center - which moved into the upper floors of the Odd Fellows Grand Lodge in 2002 - quickly became one of the busiest locations for dancers and choreographers on the West Coast.

A walk down the slightly grim, fluorescent-lit corridor takes you past an extended frieze of dancers stretching as the echoes of piano accompaniment drift through the halls. But step into any studio and you're suddenly drenched in natural light that pours into abundantly airy spaces from the high, arched windows.

Read more at the SF Chronicle site.