Dance Around

Add DanceAfrica to the long list of cultural treasures BAM has brought to the city. This year's edition features The Creative Outlet Dance Theater of Brooklyn, the eponymous Peru Negro and the Universal African Dance and Drum Ensemble. All three present vibrant, get-out-your-seats and stomp-the-ground type of excitement. Peru Negro is a particular treat: the ensemble combines singing, African dance and guitar with indigenous traditions. Performances include stilt walking, ancestral dance, martial artsa mixture of sophistication and fun makes for a rare evening that speaks as much to adults as to children.

Also around town, a little bit of dance history comes to DNA, in the form of five solo adaptations of Deborah Hay's choreography. Brooklyn-born Hay helped define contemporary dance in the early '60s along with Yvonne Rainer, Trisha Brown, Steve Paxton and Simone Forti. 

May 26-28. DanceAfrica 2006. BAM's Howard Gilman Opera House, 30 Lafayette Ave.(betw. Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.), 718-636-4100; $20-$45.

May 25-27. Adaptations: Variations on Deborah Hay. Dance New Amsterdam, 280 Broadway, 2nd floor (at Chambers St.), 212-625-8369; 8, $17.