THE JAZZ TAP ENSEMBLE AT L.A. THEATRE CENTER

The basement amphitheater at Los Angeles Theatre Center is so intimate and so acoustically alive that (despite a dizzying audience rake) it seems ideal for tap-dancing. Certainly, the Jazz Tap Ensemble has never danced in a more suitable local environment since it began life seven years ago in a homey, second-floor studio in Venice, where the dancing was always steeped in succulent barbecue vapors from a ribs restaurant below.

The big news at the ensemble’s Monday performance was the company debut of apprentice Dawn Stoppiello, temporarily replacing new member Heather Cornell. Stoppiello is a sleek, blonde beauty with square shoulders a la Ginger Rogers, promising dance skills and compelling choreographic ideas.

Her moody solo “Carnivale” used conventional tap steps and gunshot toe-kicks as a contrast to soft scraping. Sometimes her attempts to cover space while generating this almost sibilant rasping proved awkward--in one walking passage she moved as if trudging through mud. But her invention here and her elegant presence elsewhere supplied an exciting complement to the different choreographic approaches and performing styles of Jazz Tap Ensemble veterans Fred Strickler and Lynn Dally.

As usual, Strickler offered a glittering display of sharply honed footwork. (When he did a toe-turn in the opening “Night in Tunisia,” he left a half-circle etched in the floor). But, this time, his familiar solo “Tone Poem” had a deeper, more personal element, too.

Dally stomped her way through folksy showpieces with her characteristic offhand virtuosity and also brought great sensitivity to “Sweet Blues,” the finale to her atmospheric, imaginative “Blues Alley” suite. In the first section, she also managed to make Strickler keep his hands in his pockets, to abandon his petit-point style and to dance at once more casually and more dangerously than ever before.

Jeff Colella, Eric von Essen and Jerry Kalaf supplied the fine musical interludes/accompaniments.