A Mighty Tapping At the Pillow Doors

Dance is a fleeting thing. Sometimes breathtaking and transcending. Sometimes strange. Or obscure.

   Also, it can take work to watch.   

   Which is why dance performances are not for everybody. People who come to Jacob’s Pillow are, generally, savvy about the arts, middle class, advanced in years and can pony up $54.50  for premium tickets to, say, Doug Varone or

Pacific Northwest Ballet.

   This leaves a lot of people out, which is why the Pillow offers free performances every week at Inside/Out, giving young groups a chance to strut their stuff at this country’s foremost dance festival (including Nutmeg Ballet students last week), and giving anyone with wheels and the slightest curiosity about dance an opportunity to see for themselves.

  And it’s probably why the Pillow is bringing us performers like tap dancer Jason Samuels Smith and  his troupe A.C.G.I. ­— which stands for Anybody Can Get It — for a two-week run at the Doris Duke Theatre (with tickets $20 lighter than at the Ted Shawn Theatre).

   This is not Gene Kelly tap, Fred Astaire tap, Gregory Hines tap. This is entirely different.

  Smith, with his muscular, flat-footed, hunch-shouldered style shatters silence, stomping, sliding, beating the ground with his weight. All conviction. And aplomb.

   As the presenter said, Wednesday, Smith’s body is a  “percussive instrument.†He is fierce, not particularly graceful, and shambling, slamming everything around him with his loose, rugged moves.

   And the audience, mostly, ate it up.

   He was joined on the stage by Lee Howard, a lean, agile, slightly diffident young man with diamonds in both ears, who can tap on every part of his foot including the tips of his toes. And joining him were three young women: Melinda Sullivan, a suave sort of hoofer, Sarah Reich, a little tougher, and Chloe Arnold who can match the boys any time.

   Then there’s the music: Theo Hill, pianist; Curtis Lundy, bassist; and Jo Jo Smith, playing big red conga drums, who entered into an appealing duo with his son, Jason.

   And, of course, we had the face off, something peculiar to tap dance, clearly adversarial, like war, each dancer, singly, and with fierce faces, trying to outdo the others.

   “It’s all about peace,†Smith assures us at the end. As though we thought this was anything but show biz.

   Jason Samuels Smith and A.C.G.I. runs through Aug. 2 at the Doris Duke Theatre. Rennie Harris hip-hop follows, Aug. 5-9. Les Grands Ballets Canadiens at the Ted Shawn Theatre runs through Aug. 2. Call 413-243-0745. Go to www.jacobspillow.org.