Curtain up.

*&@%#!! I missed Savion Glover at The Joyce last fall! I heard about it later--from tap people, from ballet people, from modern dance people. They were excited because they felt they had witnessed Savion leaping forward as an artist. I heard about his beautifully paced improvisations and about how he opened up as a performer and really communicated with the audience. He was culling from all his years as a tapper--and his years as a protege of Gregory Hines. He was embracing the act of performing as a way to honor Hines.

This month we take an in-depth look at tap today with an exclusive interview with Glover by DANCE MAGAZINE's Karen Hildebrand, an overview of new directions in tap by Marda Kirn, and profiles of rising stars Jason Samuels Smith, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, and Roxane Butterfly.

Gregory Hines' tragic death has somehow inflused the tap community with new energy. It galvanized tap artists to recognize their past and honor their elders (which tappers are no slackers at anyway). Hines was more than a performer and artist: he was a devoted educator and mentor as well. For Savion, it must have felt like losing a beloved parent, and he says as much in our Q & A. Tap is a family. A family that allows you to experiment.

One organization whose very mission is experimentation--though in quite a different genre--is Movement Research located in downtown Manhattan. Experimentation is not a sturdy foundation to build an institution on. But Movement Research started twenty-five years ago and is still going strong. Valuing process over product, it has helped nourish some of today's leading postmodern dance artists.

Another view of process is a photo essay on the creation of Mark Morris' new version of Sylvia that premieres this month at San Francisco Ballet. Morris' own account of his process accompanies Jeffrey Newbury's images of his work in the studio.

Last month we initiated a new column called Teacher's Wisdom, the first wise teacher being ballet guru David Howard. This month we switch to modern dance and hear from Martha Graham disciple Marni Thomas, who tells us the real deal on the Graham contraction. Dancers are lifelong learners. No matter what stage you're at in your training or your career, we know you'll appreciate hearing from these master teachers.

You'll notice we're changing the name of Sylviane Gold's column from Dance Theater to On Broadway, which better reflects her subject matter. We're fortunate to have Gold reporting directly from the Broadway houses.

Our lead review this month describes a performance by Compagnie Jant-Bi about the genocide in Rwanda. The piece was ambitious, though perhaps not entirely successful. But it reminds us that dance can address the big questions in life. Our critic Rita Felciano writes that choreographer Germaine Acogny and her dancers have created beauty out of terrifying human violence. Like Hines' death, but on a very different canvas, it shows that dance can be the catalyst for renewal following grief.