Boston's Big Bang.

CRASHARTS: URBAN TAP AND MAUREEN FLEMING EMERSON MAJESTIC THEATER BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS MARCH 1-2, 14-17, 2002

The ordinary just doesn't cut it for the new Boston-based performing arts organization CRASHarts. Bringing the same mainstream, high-profile dance companies to perform in the area is not the organization's idea of spreading the gospel of dance.

* As a result, CRASHarts opened its four-month-long performing arts festival in January 2002 featuring some companies that have never performed in Boston and others that hadn't danced in Boston in as much as a decade.

The ultra-modern MOMIX, the sensual Stephen Petronio Company, and the dramatic Susan Marshall & Company were included in the inaugural season, in addition to transporting dance performances by Urban Tap and Maureen Fleming.

Urban Tap, led by Herbin "Tamango" Van Cayseele, barely can be translated into words--the show just goes on and on, offering performance art for the eyes and ears, with dance, music, and poetry. The performance is 100 percent improvised--Caravane is a two-hour jam session. Now, some may argue that dance neither practiced nor perfected as a company is not truly dance, but Tamango and his international crew dismissed that notion.

Tamango was joined onstage by drummers, vocalists, a videographer, a trumpeter, and other instrumentalists from Haiti, Paris, Brazil, Tunisia, Italy, and beyond. Instruments and voice meshed with Tamango's soulful hoofing as the ensemble sat in a semicircle around a raised platform in the center of the stage. This was the epicenter of the world where each member was invited to share his or her indigenous art.

Cabello, one of the original members of Urban Tap, strummed a handmade string instrument resembling a fishing pole while strolling about the platform. He suddenly took off his suede vest and flipped and kicked with a natural grace, performing capoeira, the dance of his native Brazil.

Soon after, James P. "Cricket" Colter pounced onto the platform like a cat on all fours. His nickname alluded to his feet never seeming to touch the ground as he performed a hip-hop, break-dance, acrobatic celebration. Tamango, jack of all trades, matched his dance colleagues, joining the caravan (hence the title of the program) to show his expertise; a combo of tap, spoken word, and Afro-Latin dance roused a call-and-response performance with the audience.

Maureen Fleming's Boston premiere of After Eros also abandoned the traditional--this time, in the way of costuming. She performed one of four scenes in the nude, and the first scene, "The Sphere," in a transparent body suit in which she bared her soul in a piece that suggested the cultural struggle of hiding behind a veil. As the audience got comfortable, so did Fleming; thus her "veil," rather, her costume, came off in the remaining scenes.

After Eros is choreographed in Japanese Butoh style. Fleming's movement was a slow current which allowed the mind to slip into a languid state. She sustained and suspended every single movement as she dangled from a lone staircase on stage right; she contorted, curved, and used her body as the main prop while standing on a small-based, ten-foot-tall platform in the center of the stage.

Only a fellow dancer could understand the strength and control it takes to sculpt movement into a shape, and would be more likely to appreciate this beautiful performance. However, for the nondancer, the performance challenges the patience and could be tiring. "This is not meant to be entertainment," said Fleming after her performance. "It's meant to be an introspective research of one's inner state."