Traveling hip hop.

After winning a spoof "beauty" pageant at Oklahoma City University in 1998, dancers Nick Drago and Grant Chenok realized they made excellent partners. Both perform with a similar power, full of hip hop energy, but grounded in a ballet background. After graduating, they began FLOW 40, a traveling dance workshop that brings both classical and hip hop dance to studios around the country. The faculty of 13 professional L.A. dancers drills basic technique in an intimate, familiar environment. Drago finds that in their home studios, "Dancers are more confident to take chances than at national conventions with a bunch of strangers."

* THE CLASSICAL DANCE ALLIANCE offers their first BARRE RAISER TRAINING INSTITUTE this month in NYC. Anna-Marie Holmes, Irina Kolpakova, Vladimir Kolesnikov, and Vladilen Semenov are scheduled to coach 30 advanced students in variations from Coppelia, Raymonda, Sleeping Beauty, and other ballets. Teachers are invited to observe or take part in learning the variations. * The Joffrey Ballet tours Iowa June 29-July 7 to celebrate the 35th anniversary of the UNIVERSITY OF IOWA'S HANCHER AUDITORIUM. The $650,000 project offers free outdoor performances and master classes in five communities. Hancher has sponsored more than 100 Joffrey performances over the past 17 years. * Twenty dance majors from HUNTER COLLEGE's dance program travel to Tobago this month to perform a Ronald K. Brown work. The students will also offer classes for local dancers and study with some of the island's master teachers. * THE CENTER FOR MODERN DANCE EDUCATION in Hackensack, NJ, celebrates its 45th anniversary on June 9 with two dance-a-thons and a gala performance featuring alumni, CMDE's Repertory Company, and founder Shirley Ubell. * GEMZE DE LAPPE will be given a Lifetime Achievement Award from CORPS (Council of Organized Researchers for Pedagogical Studies) de Ballet International on June 24. De Lappe danced for Michel Fokine and was Agnes de Mille's protegee in the '40s and '50s.