The Bay Area dancers visiting Los Banos this weekend brought more than foggy drizzly weather with them.

They brought a sneak peak at their future performance plans for this small town and a reason to come outside in spite of the cold.

"A lot of people are hesitant about us," said Katherine McGinity. "Out visits are a kind of way to let them know that we are committed."

McGinity and members of the University of California, Berkeley's Dance Company held a series of workshops and demonstrations for Los Banos children and adults.

An early visit to the library for a "make a dance" workshop brought smiles to children's faces as they saw their favorite animals, colors and words come to life through movement.

The dance company created playful dance improvisations using words like wiggle, hamster and blizzard, pretty soon the entire Los Banos library was over run with oversized hamsters wiggling in a blizzard.

At a performance held in the Ted Falasco Arts Center, UC Berkeley assistant professor Lisa Wymore explained a little about the dance company and the project they are planning and hope Los Banos residents participate in.

Wymore and the dance company's visit is the first of many outreach projects they are planning to gather support and participants for Wymore's dance "movement choir" known as Parking Space.

A group of dancers demonstrated what a "movement choir" is to Los Banos audiences, a type of dance where large groups move in a choreographed manner.

The dance was created by Slovakian dance theorist Rudolf Von Laban in the early 1900s as a way to celebrate the continuity of a group and individualism.

The following day, the dance company held more fun workshops in all types of dance including a "movement choir" and visited New Bethany to gather oral histories.

Part of Wymore's goal with the project besides using dance as a way to bring the community together, is to document the process and gather stories from Los Banos residents about the city's change from small agricultural town into a Bay Area edge city.