November's End

Before I take a health-imposed hiatus, I’ll be seeing the University of Maryland Dance Ensemble in Helen Tamiris’s “How Long Brethren” Saturday. I spoke with Dianne McIntyre, who rebuilt the piece back in 1991 from a collection of ephemera –- photos, programs, reviews and notes –- at the Federal Theatre Project archives and from the memories of some key Tamiris dancers. My story about Tamiris, “Brethren” and its Jewish connections appears this week in the Washington Jewish Week. There’s a pre-show panel tomorrow at 7:00 p.m. featuring Sali Ann Kriegsman, Mim Rosen and others involved in this latest reconstruction.

On Sunday, I’ll be back at the Clarice Smith Center to catch French-American tap dancer Roxane Butterfly’s last show of her local run. “World Beats” is a percussive journey eastward that touches down in Morocco, Algeria, Spain, Turkey, Greece and other locales along the way. My story appears in Weekend here. Most poignant about our conversation was that Butterfly, who’s been based in New York for years now, said that every old jazz-tap club where she once honed her craft is now gone. Jazz musicians, she noted, have for the most part forsaken their interest in and connection to tappers. That’s why she began investigating the panoply of world rhythms. Her dancing is both elegant and earthy, quicksilver and raw, and her intensive studies of rhythms further a field than American jazz, makes her show “World Beats” something to see.

Other dance onstage this weekend: “Winter Heat” Friday and Saturday at the Lansburgh Theatre downtown. Three hot-blooded DC companies share a bill: Coyaba Dance Theater, former Dance Theatre of Harlem principal Fabian Barnes’s Washington Reflections Dance Company and, one of my favorites, Step Afrika. The rousing percussive step dancing of Step Afrika takes me back to my college days when I watched frat pledges walk the line on the quad, pause and slap, clap and stomp out intricate percussive missives about being an Alpha or Sigma or some other Greek lettered fraternity member.

The Joy of Motion Dance Project opens its Jack Guidone stage on Saturday at 8:00 p.m. to a number of emerging local choreographers, among them Rob Bettmann -- whose new site, bourgeononline, is giving space and voice to local dance and performing artists -- Shannon Dunne, Furia Flamenca, Tappening and JOM resident hip hoppers DCypher, among other DC-based groups.

Finally, if you haven’t yet seen “The Studio” at Signature Theatre’s Max stage, do go before it closes December 9. Created by dancer and choreographer Christopher d’Amboise, whose father Jacques made ballet acceptable for American men in his day, this play with dance gets inside the creative process and takes a very realistic look at the life of a dancer. While the choreography isn’t much to write home about, the conception and the feeling of being present at creation make this worth a visit. A bonus: the scintillating performances of dancer/actors Tyler Hanes and Chrissie Whitehead.