Fabian Barnes puts the spirit in Kwanzaa.

Tribal rhythms and an urban beat will spice up the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts's holiday dance fare when Fabian Barnes's Spirit of Kwanzaa[TM] hits the Concert Hall on December 28 and 29. Part of the Kennedy Center festivities since 1996, after Barnes suggested the need for a program that spoke directly to Washington's African American majority, the production has escalated into one of the most significant Kwanzaa celebrations in the country. The spectacle, featuring some sixty students between the ages of 4 and 21 from Barnes's Dance Institute of Washington, combines the magic of The Nutcracker and the exuberance of a Messiah sing-along, but it stands for much more than entertainment.

A distinctly American holiday crafted during the civil-rights movement of the 1960s by scholar-activist Maulana Karenga, who currently teaches at California State University, Long Beach, Kwanzaa was inspired by African harvest festivals.

"It celebrates community and responsibility," Barnes explains, and those are two concepts he takes seriously. Even before retiring from his soloist position with Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theatre of Harlem in 1995, Barnes founded his Dance Institute out of a deeply felt obligation to give others the opportunities he had enjoyed through ballet scholarships in his native Seattle. "The mission is to instill discipline and a drive for excellence in underserved, at-risk youth, which is what I was," he says.

THE YOUNGEST OF TEN CHILDREN, BARNES found his way to the barre at age 11 by literally following in the footsteps of an older brother who, encouraged by their mother, was already on scholarship at Virginia Corkle's studio. Barnes is grateful to Corkle, and not just for the doors her training opened. "I do believe I could have ended up like so many of my peers who are now on drugs, in jail, or dead," he says. "But I was able to take dance. It was something I was passionate about and it became a driving force."

A sparkling, restored school building houses The Dance Institute, along with several other community programs, in the heart of one of D.C.'s chronically poor neighborhoods. The Capitol looms a few blocks away; bathed in the rosy glow of a winter sunset, its splendor can obscure the surrounding poverty. The school's reputation for high-quality instruction attracts many students from outlying suburbs who can afford to pay for classes, but 60 percent attend on full or partial scholarship--referred by the courts or recruited from a vigorous campaign in the schools. Some of the tiniest come from a day-care center for homeless children located just downstairs. The curriculum, structured around the school day, covers various levels of ballet, modern, tap, jazz, African dance, and hip-hop, adding up to twenty-nine classes a week taught by Barnes and twelve instructors. During 2002, 500 children either attended studio classes or benefited from outreach programs.

Barnes offers all a chance to meet his high expectations through a demanding regime of ballet technique and the Balanchine-cum-Mitchell neoclassical style. He is lavish with his corrections but sparing with his praise--one parent approvingly described the discipline as "regimental"--and the young people try hard to measure up. It's tough love and it has worked.

As Sarah Kaufman wrote for the Washington Post, "Fabian Barnes is not into do-good. He's strictly into do-great." When the students take center stage in his holiday extravaganza, they deliver. Just ask the audience, up from an initial 500 in 1996 to 3,800 in 2001.

Barnes structures the pageantry around the seven Kwanzaa principles--unity, self-determination, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, collective work, and faith. He also features guest artists. This year, he plans to include dancers from Dance Theatre of Harlem (performing a pas de deux), the Philadelphia hip-hop ensemble Rennie Harris PureMovement, and various local celebrities. Mainly though, this is DIW's show and, as dazzling as the professionals are, most people come to see the kids.

Barnes starts drilling them in September in the production's mainly contemporary, African-rooted repertoire. "We just keep going," he says, "until the choreography is second nature." By December, the energetic young corps is poised, polished, and precisely on the music, including the 3-year-olds dancing their hearts out and stealing the show.

"Outreach and in-reach," says Barnes, describing what the production accomplishes with a reference to his reaching out for an audience and into his classes for dancers. "The goal is to use Kwanzaa as the foundation and impetus of a community celebration and as a way to create art."

The effort is definitely appreciated. In 2000 Barnes received the Oprah Winfrey Use Your Life Award of $100,000. In 2001, he received a joint grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the National Endowment for the Arts to teach dance and life skills to children who live in public housing. And in April 2002, the city gave him a parcel of land in northwest Washington, D.C., where he plans to build a studio and launch a professional company. "I've been lucky," he says, "People have always been interested in what I was doing."

Paula Durbin has written for Dance Magazine from Hawaii and Maryland. Her work has appeared in various local national and international publications.