Exploring African connections

The dance forms -- tap, capoeira, gumboot and hip-hop -- spread like honey on a table. At least that’s what UC Riverside dance professor Anna Scott pointed out while serving as tour guide to “Echo Africa: Dance From the Diaspora” on Saturday night at California Plaza as part of the Grand Performances free summer series.

Well, maybe the journey was a bit zigzaggedy, but four acts whose dance forms have filial connections to Africa nevertheless put on a good show.

None proved as powerful, however, as Philadelphia-based Rennie Harris. His seven-minute solo, “Endangered Species” (first reviewed in 1996 and since reworked), brought his African roots -- and harsh urban upbringing -- into full view.

Harris, founder of Rennie Harris Puremovement, danced to a taped, autobiographical text laced with heavy breathing sounds -- fitting, since Harris is first seen as if in slow motion, walking or running from that which is virtually inescapable: his past.

The monologue details, among other things, a lesbian sister, another’s mental retardation, and two gangsta brothers.

Harris crouches, slices the air with winglike hands, skitters on his knees. He speaks of molestation at age 6, being Catholic, racism.

His hip-hop moves are robotic -- he’s popping. His body seems to have a mind of its own.

Intense, and not exactly family-friendly, the piece ends with a bullet taking him down.

The other three groups got down in their own ways: Scott introduced Los Angeles-based Kennedy Tap Company, 12 beaming youngsters (ages 11 to 17) whose feet she likened to “drums in talking form.”

Unison tapping sounded like cards being shuffled, as another American leg of the diaspora was on display.

Slaves -- and capoeira, the martial arts-dance form -- were brought to Brazil from Africa, and the locally based Ballet Folclorico Do Brasil, founded by Amen Santo, is all about freedom.

A dozen people burned up the stage with astonishing acrobatics as contorting bodies blurred, twirled, twisted and high-kicked to invigorating percussion music.

Completing the program: Los Angeles-based Shaluza Boot Dancers performed body-slapping, torso-shimmying routines originally created by South African miners at work.

The evening, to paraphrase Scott, was a veritable “soul express.”