One Saturday afternoon in March, a sleepy residential street near Xujiahui reverberated with the unmistakable thump of bass. It emanated from beyond a small door a few paces away from the street's main landmark, one of Shanghai's ubiquitous 24-hour convenience stores. Beyond the small door a dance club was in full swing. DJs rotated on the decks, beers flowed freely, and the party's regulars hung their photography on the walls. Spring had just begun.

Three months later, on another Saturday afternoon, Blue Ice Club on Yongfu Lu likewise abandoned normal hours. Inside the cavernous interior, people painted on canvases, danced to one of the most diverse selections of music in town and purchased posters especially designed for the event.

Another Saturday afternoon, this time in September, on a rooftop near Jing'An Temple known as The Lab, people quaffed Suntories, listened to an ever-changing selection of tunes, from broken beats to techno and hip hop, and looked out over Shanghai fading into twilight. A wall became a canvas for artists armed with aerosol cans.

Different locations, same event. That's the way PAUSE, an event organized by a loose collective of Shanghai's independent and alternative party promoters, DJs and visual artists, was set up--as a kind of mobile celebration. Since its inception in the basement of the club YY's in January, three editions have been held, each in a different location. "We don't want [PAUSE] to be associated with any one venue," says Michael Ohlsson, one of the organizers (he also writes a column for this magazine). "Especially in Shanghai, people don't seem to understand that a venue and a party organizer are separate."

In a city accustomed to showboating nightspots and drinks specials, harder still to understand might be the notion of a party that attempts to embrace creativity in its myriad forms. "PAUSE was meant to be an artistic platform for local independent and underground talents to meet and expose their works to the public. We are trying to keep PAUSE accessible to everybody and get a wide-ranging local audience to come and see what happens in this city in terms of arts, music and culture beside big clubs and fancy events," says Blaise Deville, another organizer.

The spark that started PAUSE was Gaz Williams, a British DJ with the moniker Drunk Monk, who had come to Shanghai to study Chinese but has since returned to Britain.

When Ohlsson, who also organizes the monthly Antidote parties, met Gaz, the two found themselves struck by a similar idea: a daytime party. "Gaz told me he was thinking up the same thing. So we teamed up, and along with Jane, Evelyn, William and Klaudia, we started PAUSE."

Jane is better known as DJ Siesta, who runs the Phreaktion drum 'n' bass nights. Evelyn is a graphic designer who designs PAUSE's flyers as Otorok, William runs the street art design and collectors' toy store My Xanadu while Klaudia assembles CDs for sale at each event.

Indeed, even the name PAUSE was chosen to reflect the group effort behind the event, because it is an acronym for the various groups behind it. Such coziness is rare in nightlife circles where tribal competitiveness is more common. As DJ Siesta notes: "It's really all about luck. The biggest hurdle for any city to have something like PAUSE is the people--we just happened to have the same mentality, the same kind of vibe that we feed off each other, and we also like each other!" Of course, the groups involved in PAUSE get a chance to promote their own events at the party, too, which gives everyone an incentive to get along.

Like Shanghai itself, each new edition of PAUSE seems to be growing larger. The next one will feature some 30 DJs, live street art and musicians, a photo exhibition, video art workshops, a variety of stalls selling art and music and possibly a fashion show. As Deville says, "I think getting too big is not the real problem. The real problem is to try to stay loyal to our principles: An independent, non-profit association of people who just want to promote art."

Surely not a bad problem to have.

The next PAUSE is at Tanghui on Nov. 25, 2pm-8pm. Admission is free.

The PAUSE Crew's Playlist of Faves: Anything by 4Hero DJ Siesta

The Buri Buri Soundsystem - Don't Push Michael Ohlsson aka Ozone

IAM - Pause Blaise Deville

Almost anything by The Gorillaz William, My Xanadu

Primal Scream - Kowalski Adam F - Circles Evelyn Otorok

Faith No More - Evidence Klaudia Strame