Performing Arts

It was cool and cloudy Saturday afternoon at Annette Strauss Artist Square at Samuell-Grand Park. Hot dogs and ice-cream vendors were in full swing. Kids ran around with their faces painted. A ballet dancer in Don Quixote costume warmed up on hard concrete.

MATT NAGER/Special Contributor

Hip-hop star Kenny Wormald (right) teaches a class at the 12th annual Dance for the Planet festival on Saturday. The festival's alphabet soup of dance styles ranged from African to tap.

Oh, that must mean it was Dance for the Planet.

The 12th annual event got under way at noon Saturday (and continued Sunday), and for five hours, an alphabet soup of dance styles spilled out – from African to tap, and in between ballet, belly dance, Bharatha Naatyam, Charleston, folkorico, hip-hop, Lindy, modern and swing.

If there was any competition, it was between hip-hop and ballet, with hip-hop having the edge by virtue of guest artist Kenny Wormald. (He stars in the not-yet-released movie Centerstage 2.)

After four hip-hop groups performed at noon Saturday, in rat-a-tat order on the Heritage Auction Galleries Stage, Mr. Wormald sidled in to warm things up by playing it cool. In baggy pants and white shirt, he let loose with the most intricate set of movements, every part of his body separate and active.

A half-hour later, Mr. Wormald showed up at the Brand-Sayers Architects Spot. Most of those hip-hop kids joined him to get a first-hand lesson, along with a couple of 60-year-olds and some small fry. Everyone caught on fast, with 11-year-old Kassidy Bright, still in a skeleton outfit from her solo performance on Heritage Stage, looking particularly nonchalant. Slide, bounce, pas de bourrée, step, step, swing foot, touch face – whatever Mr. Wormald asked for, no one blinked. Nothing to it. Or at least for the young; I bowed off early.

With so much going on simultaneously on two stages and the Spot, it was impossible to take it all in. Among the best were Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts' hip-hop dancers and Repertory I, and Push Comes to Shove. A lot of the rest was just so-so. At any rate, you had an excuse to wander off when you got bored to check out the action elsewhere.

And there were always hot dogs.

Margaret Putnam is a Richardson-based writer who covers dance.

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