DANCE REVIEW : JAZZ TAP ENSEMBLE AT BEVERLY THEATRE

Tapdancing began as an act of personal display on inner-city street corners. Attempts to divest it of its sense of spatial containment can be risky.

On Saturday, the three dancers in the Jazz Tap Ensemble claimed nearly every inch of stage at the Beverly Theatre, even dancing right up against and behind the three-member band. But their floor mikes (on a stage that is reportedly wood in front, concrete at the back) sent back curious noises.

Sometimes the tapping seemed feeble or even became inaudible, and then, suddenly, it would emerge louder than the band--but heard only via loudspeakers on the other side of the stage from the dancers--or sound like hoofs.

Ultimately, the soundman seemed more in control of the tap-rhythms than the dancers. Thus the disassociation between “live” sight and manipulated sound stole credibility from founders Lynn Dally and Fred Strickler, who, if nothing else, always have been remarkable tap technicians.

For the first time in a local Jazz Tap program, the visual display of hoofing --flying arms and kicking feet--seemed more the point than rhythmic interchange and embellishment. Though this distortion served newcomer Heather Cornell, who held choreographic poses better than her colleagues but scarcely approached their level of footwork, it left the percussive immediacy of tap shortchanged.

Dally, as usual, revealed a gutsy drive and a willingness to investigate new creative turf--even when, as in the “My Man’s Gone Now” section of her appealing “Gershwin” suite--it led her to a dead end: an expressive statement that might be more fully physicalized without tap shoes.

Strickler, as usual, projected awesome control of his feet (especially in “Jam With Honi”), but a forced conviviality. And his curt, semaphoric arm emphases in the brilliantly tapped “Tone Poem” might have belonged to another, far less artful, performer.

Cornell looked her best (relaxed and responsive) opposite Strickler in “Bossa Nova,” choreographed by Cornell and Jamie Cunneen.