With drum and guitar accompaniment, the group finally produces a sound that bursts through the church doors and skips half a block down the street.
Downs' big voice with minimal accompaniment.
But the dancers often move without accompaniment, and their group patterns, some as basic as walking, create a kind of visual polyphony.
The most compelling attraction, however, is the interplay between the band's founders, the vocalist Jennifer Charles and the guitarist Oren Bloedow, whose subtle and tasteful accompaniment defines the group's sound.
His "Juanita y Alicia," set to Cuban music from the 1920's and 30's, will feature live accompaniment by the Washington-based group Sin Miedo.
"The timbales are for providing accompaniment, backup for the group; and a good timbalero must have a strong left hand to play the tumbao and pailas or cascara," he said, referring to different rhythmic patterns in a measure.
On a modern piano, with a slender string ensemble, the balance of power in this piece was changed as if to reflect his status: the accompaniment was a small group of voices that were silenced whenever Mr. Fleisher, projecting absolute, warm authority, had anything to say.
Mr. Stillman and Mr. Dingman have great rapport as they weave ideas together over the groups' steady accompaniment and Mr. Ferreira's repeating guitar pedal-point line.
It would lurk in the background of a group, companionably strumming accompaniment, then make its move into the foreground as a solo instrument, as it did in bluegrass.
"Wild Style," the album, consists mostly of live performances by rap vocalists and groups, with rhythmic accompaniment by disk jockeys and sound mixers like Grand Wizard Theodore and Grandmixer DST.
