July 7-13, 2005

artpicks

World at Their Feet

by Janet Anderson

dance

Call it Live 3. OK, the Mann Center is calling the three dance troupes Global Dance Rhythms. Whatever, you've got an exuberant, free, morning dance performance aimed at the youngest audience members but that anyone can enjoy. The performers are local, but they'll take everyone on a journey around the globe with what seems to be widely differing dance traditions.

Universal African Dance and Drum Ensemble, 45 multi-talented, all-ages performers from Camden (pictured), will bring the Mann audience to its feet with a burst of sound and movement. The Universal African performers (even very young ones) will drum and dance onstage, plus they'll be out in the audience as stilt-walkers, and in masquerade costume peering over people's shoulders. Everyone will be involved in the performance.

The equally vivid Cambodian Performing Arts Youth Dance Ensemble will shift the mood with ringing bells and softer drums. These young people (ages 6 to 21) receive year-round training from the Cambodian Association of Greater Philadelphia. Wearing brightly colored silk and executing complicated group formations, the dancers will evoke a fairy-tale-like tradition sure to fascinate young and old alike.

And then classical ballet? Yes, students of International Ballet Theater of the Performing Arts, affiliated locally with the Ukrainian Educational and Cultural Center of Philadelphia, turn the compass toward toe shoes and arabesques.

A mixed bag? Not really. Every culture incorporates balance, leaping and physical dexterity with music and calls it dance. Consider this a free trip (parking included) around that world.

Global Dance Rhythms, Mon., July 11, 11 a.m., free, Mann Center for the Performing Arts, 52nd St. and Parkside Ave., 215-546-7900, www.manncenter.org.