African Roads, American Streets

Edna Stevens Talton was but a wee Liberian seven-year-old when her family transplanted itself to the States in 1981. Once here, she quickly picked up on echoes of traditional African dance in the new African-American styles she was discovering. A couple of decades later, long after she’d forged a successful career as an MTV backup dancer, Talton would strike upon this parallel by leading her company, Universal Dance Destiny Studios, in a review of African and African-American dances that became the hit of last year’s Minneapolis/St. Paul Fringe Festival. Thirty-five performers sustain an hour of constant motion, with breakdancing, krumping, and traditional West African dance set to spoken word, hip-hop, and African drumming. One of four top-selling Fringe productions being reprised at the Guthrie. 612-377-2224; www.guthrietheater.org