Jazz Ensemble Taps New Dancers

With a primed audience cheering and clapping at nearly every fancy turn, elongated slide and filigreed brush step, Jazz Tap Ensemble took to the stage of Rolling Hills’ Norris Theatre on Friday with its usual seasoned aplomb. Why not? Currently celebrating its 20-year anniversary under Lynn Dally’s keen artistic direction, JTE offered up a handful of premieres in a 13-part program--and two new dancers: Roxane Butterfly and Steve Zee.

Butterfly’s “Solo for Roxane” was a dazzling rhythmic banquet set to Cole Porter’s “Love for Sale,” tastefully rendered by the JTE trio: Theo Saunders on piano, Henry Franklin providing solid bass playing and Jerry Kalaf delivering some cool drumming. The svelte Butterfly--whose moniker brings to mind Muhammad Ali’s “float like a butterfly . . .” phase--effortlessly shifted her weight, much like the erstwhile pugilist, creating a footwork fugue of unexpected syncopations, stunning also with her Ann Miller-like speed and attack.

Zee, in a suit, took his “Goodbye Pork Pie Hat,” a solo set to Charles Mingus, slow and easy, executing nifty turns and occasionally vamping a cappella. “This Is New,” a four-way improvisation with Zee, Butterfly and veterans Sam Weber and Becky Twitchell, proved jaunty fare, with snazzy skips, hops and jumps popping to the music of Kurt Weill.

“Groove,” a work in progress choreographed for JTE by tapmeister Gregory Hines, was sexy and sassy, though too underdeveloped at this point to warrant a performance. “Interplay,” on the other hand, created by veteran tap guru Jimmy Slyde, has become one of the company’s signature pieces, allowing the facile dancers--Dally included--to breeze across the stage with skilled finesse and consummate artistry.