Dance Styles

The Talent Machine Company's current production of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" is amazing in its high-spirited cast brimming with energy, its fast-paced staging, its brilliant choreography, its fabulous sets, its dazzling costumes and its great sound and lighting. No single performer in this 23-member cast of 12 to 19-year-olds was less than brilliant in a recent performance. This production of "Joseph" along with the Annapolis Summer Garden Theatre's season opener "Jesus Christ Superstar," are this season's standouts.

I CAN'T BELIEVE you did this again," my sister sighed as she bandaged my thumb. "I thought we had removed all the hot-glue guns from the house."It was all those craft shows, I explained. Everywhere I looked I saw "unique holiday decorations and gift ideas." I figured, how difficult could this be?"Obviously it was difficult enough to cause a second-degree burn," she noted, pulling on a pine cone accidentally glued to my hair."First I think we need to address your obvious lack of talent in this arena," my sister said.

Eva Anderson's Baltimore Dance Theatre is marking its 20th anniversary in a city in which dance companies have a precarious existence. Not only did the concert at the Baltimore Museum of Arts Saturday night attest to Ms. Anderson's perseverance of spirit, but the nearly packed house also confirmed her popularity.The event also served as a ceremony -- as the torch of the company's artistic director was passed from Ms. Anderson to longtime company member Dr. Charles Carter.Featured on this program was Ms. Anderson's "Beginnings," which premiered last spring, plus excerpts from several of her other works.

NOTE TO editor(s) and all interested parties: In a cruel twist of perversion, I shall be forced to board a plane and fly to Denver (located uncomfortably close to mountains, I've been told), where I will be subjected to a week of indoctrination by the insurance industry that will most likely make the brainwashing efforts in George Orwell's "1984" look hospitable.I offer this information to allow The Sun the luxury of preparing for my May 15 column, which will either be forwarded early (stop laughing)

Sixteen-year-old Anneke Collins has been dancing since she was 9, and has trained in ballet, modern, jazz and other dance styles. But the quick, sharp movements of hip-hop dance were all new to the Columbia resident as she followed professional dancer Ellen Rath on Tuesday through a series of shoulder pops, leg swivels, turns, bounces and pivots. "It makes me laugh at myself," she said. "It's moves our bodies are not used to." Collins and six other local teenage dancers spent three days in intensive workshops this week learning a routine of classical, hip-hop, jazz and b-boy (also called breakdancing)

Note: Since I recap both Dancing with the Stars and So You Think You Can Dance and they're overlapping seasons this week and next, I'll be covering both nights in one recap for these first two weeks. They open with past winners and notable contestants being interviewed about how their life changed by putting on a number and getting in the audition line. My favorite bit is Mary with a giant, tight, curly hairdo, like when we had perms in the '80s. Tuesday Night - Los Angeles Auditions We're in Los Angeles at the Orpheum Theatre.

Garth Fagan was speaking of "chicken and fish."No, the choreographer wasn't discussing food, but the recipe for his eponymous troupe's distinctive dance style."

One art form grew up in the Southern Appalachian mountains, evolving from the traditional dances of Irish, Scottish and English settlers. The other came of age in the 1970s in black fraternities and sororities on American college campuses. Step-dancing and stepping, two forms of percussive dance, may have similar names but are far removed from each other by race, culture and generations. Though they previously have had separate audiences - one white, one black - they will share the stage at the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis tomorrow and Saturday nights.

But for the baggy T-shirts and Lycra leotards, this could have been Pierre Duport's Baltimore dance studio of two centuries ago. The dozen dancers -- bodies perfectly erect, arms precisely held -- were carving the elaborate patterns of early 19th-century social dance around the Todd Studio at Goucher College early this week. These are the members of Choregraphie Antique, a decade-old combination of historical research project and performance troupe that reconstructs dances of the past.

Candlelight Concerts' Performing Arts Series for Children will present Mexican dance and musical program Sunday at Howard Community College's Smith Theatre. The history, culture and traditions of Mexico are brought to the stage by Los Quetzales Mexican Dance Ensemble, professional dancers who will demonstrate dance styles from a number of Mexico's 31 states. The resplendent colors of the quetzal bird, which is honored in Mexico and Central America, will be represented in traditional costumes and reflective of the beauty and vitality of Mexican culture.