Frat Fuller

Talking to Frit and Frat Fuller is a stereo experience. Seated on the hardwood floor of a San Fernando Valley dance studio, unfazed by the stagnant air of a recent heat wave, the twin brother co-artistic directors of KIN Dance Company toss the conversational ball back and forth with alacrity. They not only start and finish each other's sentences, but do so at warp speed. Fortunately, they also share a creative sensibility--one that's right in sync with the cultural moment.

Talking to Frit and Frat Fuller is a stereo experience. Seated on the hardwood floor of a San Fernando Valley dance studio, unfazed by the stagnant air of a recent heat wave, the twin brother co-artistic directors of KIN Dance Company toss the conversational ball back and forth with alacrity. They not only start and finish each other's sentences, but do so at warp speed. Fortunately, they also share a creative sensibility--one that's right in sync with the cultural moment.

SHORTLY before his death in December, rock icon James Brown reportedly agreed to appear as a guest in a dance musical created as a tribute to him by local choreographers Frit and Frat Fuller. This long-delayed project, "Down Around Brown Town," is finally scheduled to premiere Thursday at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center -- without Brown, obviously, but with the James Brown Band, actor-singer Dorian Harewood, and singers Frank Lawson and Amanda Zuckerman as special guests.

Sharing a bill at the Keck Theater of Occidental College in Eagle Rock Friday night, two local groups--Dance Electric and Kin Dance Company--had in common their use of popular dance forms and a classical dance base. "It's like ballet, only less . . . artistic," an audience member was overheard explaining beforehand. Well, only sometimes. Happily with Kin, "less artistic" probably just meant "more accessible."

At the Hollywood Playhouse through Sunday, "If the Shoe Fits" makes a statement about the creative spirit in the local commercial-dance community. Under the direction of Grover Dale, nine choreographers from film, TV, dance-video and musicals present new pieces--and only a few turn out to be predictable, audition-style showcases. The rest prove freshly exploratory, often investigating and overturning commercial-dance cliches.

Ballets with intriguing premises and performances but no real endings made the "Re-Percussions" program by La Danserie seem strangely incomplete at Highways Performance Space on Thursday. Clearly this local collective knows how to dance but not how to stop. Performed in three installments between other pieces, Lisa K.

Diavolo Dance Theater and Kin Dance Company are fast-rising, locally based contemporary groups that don't invent movement but take what's already out there and re-contextualize it, creating daring and often outrageous social statements from familiar materials. Their shared program Saturday at Occidental College confirmed their growing strength and popularity, though their newest works (Diavolo's "D.2.R. II" and Kin's "Viewer Discretion") both fizzled out at the end.

Dozens of high-kickers, huge leapers and hip-hopping homies shredded the stage of the El Portal Theatre on Friday night under the banner of the Praxis Project. Founded in 1999 by Kacy and Craig Keys, the project ("praxis" is Latin for "practice"), brings the local dance community together each summer through workshops, master classes and performing opportunities. For the last two years, Praxis has partnered with Lula Washington Dance Theatre. This year's result is "Affirmations ...

MOVIES "The Avengers," inspired by the mod '60s British TV series, stars Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman, right, as ultra-hip crime fighters John Steed and Dr. Emma Peel. In the big-screen caper, which opens Friday in general release, the duo take on a devilishly clever and thoroughly evil Sean Connery. MOVIES In "Return to Paradise," Vince Vaughn, Joaquin Phoenix and David Conrad star as carefree Americans who meet and become pals--with consequences--while vacationing in Southeast Asia.

Self-empowerment was not only the theme of many offerings on the annual Praxis Project showcase program Friday at the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre but is also the underlying mission of the project.

The "Voices in Motion" series, created as a showcase for emerging local choreographers, returned to the Ivar Theatre in Hollywood over the weekend in its third edition. The program booklet credits four government agencies with making possible ("in part") programs of the Inner City Cultural Center. However, this ICCC event was largely made possible by the choreographers themselves, who contributed up to $750 apiece in order to appear in the two-day, three-night series.