By Laura Molzahn

Fresh faces --- and youthful feet, ankles, and hips --- introduced a brave new world of tap on Wednesday, the first program of three in Chicago Human Rhythm Project's annual Rhythm World faculty showcase, "JUBA!" Between the unforced good cheer of happy tap-dancers and the high spirits of the many students in the house, you could have cut the charged air with a knife. (The performance series continues Thursday at the Museum of Contemporary Art with a program honoring Canadian dancer and teacher Heather Cornell and featuring Canadian tappers, and on Saturday in a program honoring director/choreographer Randy Skinner and focused on Chicago groups.)

Chicagoan Nico Rubio, a former Rhythm World scholarship student, directed Wednesday's show, ablaze with innovative touches: beat-boxing, break dancing, even some modern dance. The music alternated between, or at times combined, recorded tracks and live playing by a six-piece band.

But all the young dancing on view, some of it by ensembles in training, was a double-edged sword. We got energy in abundance, but students learn the art form by memorizing steps and repeating them. That means choreography, which can take away some of tapâ??s excitement and individuality. Tappers are musicians, and most learn by the charts before they can improvise --- the lifeblood of tap, revealing the hearts of its dancers.

Naturally some of the more experienced performers onstage, improvising alone or in duos, were the ones who stuck in my mind. Jason Samuels Smith, who's all of 30, knows how to start small and bring things to a rousing conclusion. Looking apprehensive, he came out saying, "I ain't no 20-something" --- but proceeded to set a mood and rhythm for the band, then let loose his hyper-flexible ankles and big feet to tattoo the stage or traverse it with hummingbird steps.

Daniel Borak, from Switzerland, and Starinah ("Star") Dixon, from Chicago, seemed to be late additions to the program but radiated personality in their solos. Borak, who won four gold medals in a 2008 international tap competition, is athletic but loose: you'd never mistake him for a gymnast. Think hip-hop, especially given his ability to dive to the floor and pivot on one hip, or hop while dragging a toe behind him, grinning the entire time. Dixon, the younger sister of M.A.D.D. Rhythms founder Bril Barrett and one of its members, was all business as she unleashed a steady rapid-fire stream of delicate taps to the band's rendition of "Lullaby of Birdland." But when she relaxed, she revealed a completely adorable, slightly awkward vulnerability.

Canada natives Matt Shields and Travis Knights (Tapestry company members who also perform Thursday) shared the stage in a structured but, I think, partially improvised tap-off set to the band's playing of "Blue Skies." Shields is a big, galumph-y kind of guy who looks like he's going to fly apart onstage while Knights is smaller, neater, and tighter in his steps; they made a great contrast. Neither won, and that was the point of this meeting of opposites in a whole greater than its parts.

Michelle Dorrance's "Two to One" was also partly choreographed, partly improvised. The moody opening, a duet for her and barefoot modern dancer Mishay Petronelli, was unlike any other tap/modern mash-up I've seen: it juxtaposed yet rhymed the two. The second part, a solo for Dorrance, let her break out, with a huge grin and flying arms, to duel with the drummer.

Choreographed works included BAM!'s quartet "Ain't No Sunshine," by Jessica Chapuis (also the winner of this year's Virtual Rhythms videography award). And lanky, loopy former M.A.D.D. Rhythms member Nico Rubio offered three innovative choreographed/collaborative pieces, one of them by Sour Apples Crew and featuring DJs, beat-boxers, and several fabulous b-boys/girls. The other two came from Rubio's "#SampleSundays" series, a set of dances (also posted on YouTube) that borrow from the hip-hop concept of sampling. Jus'LisTeN (Chapuis, Rubio, Lisa La Touche, and Martin "Tre" Dumas) performed the "ATCQ Tribute" and "In Walked Midnight."

The youngest youngsters included the winners of the Virtual Rhythms choreography award, Marina Coura and Charles Renato, and their performers. Or so I'd guess by the look of them. Their quintet, set to Alicia Keys's "Heartburn," contrasted the different energy of its four women and one man: Renato, a diminutive Brazilian firecracker.

The three youth ensembles offered a charming mix of enthusiasm and slightly self-conscious vulnerability. Seattle's Northwest Tap Connection, dressed in white shirts and jeans, performed to Outkast's recorded "Love in War." The North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble, founded in 1983, offered Ayodele Casel's "Sing Sing Sing" (which included a few of the truly young, and the truly amazing) and Jason Janas's "Do Your 'Ting," to a song by tap-dancer Joseph Webb.

The thunderclap for me, however, was Chicago's own Mayfair Dance Academy, founded in 1957 by Tommy Sutton. Some 20 fierce, unsmiling girls swarmed the stage in Jakari Sherman's clapping, chanting, stomping "Steppin'Out." These young dancers embodied the old-school roots of their family-and-community organization and of the militaristic stepping tradition, which incorporates African dance and originated among African-American soldiers returning to the U.S. after WWII.