Not all that long ago, many western critics considered African dance a "primitive" form that lacked any real technique. Then in the 1970's, several landmark works of scholarship blew that condescending idea to smithereens. In particular, Yale art historian Robert Farris Thompson, in a dense, brilliant essay, African Art and Motion, identified a complex canon by which people in West and Central Africa judge a dancer's mastery.

According to Farris Thompson, the African aesthetic values youthful vigor and strength, polyrhythms, sharp juxtapositions, and "coolness," a sort of spiritual state that combines composure, playfulness, and healing. Well, Kusun has them all. The Ghanaian dance and music ensemble appeared last night at the City Heights Performance Annex, in a joyous show that ended with the audience spilling onto the stage and grooving with the four dancers, while the six musicians played a highlife tune. (A personal thanks to Yawuza AlHassan for showing me some great moves.)

Kusun performs again this evening at the World Beat Center, and I have one word of advice: Go.

With its members recruited from the Ghanaian National Ballet and the Pan African Orchestra, Kusun has performed in a showcase at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and before audiences of thousands internationally, and these world-class artists deserve a far larger venue than City Heights or the World Beat Center. Yet what a treat for us to see Kusun in such intimate spaces, where dancer Okuley Benard can bound out from the wings and, with a few powerful leaps, nearly fly into the front row! Benard, a muscular warrior of a dancer, shoots forward with terrifying momentum—then stops dead-on, like a case study in the aesthetic of juxtaposition.

Benard and AlHassan, the male dancers, play to the crowd, making frequent eye contact—Benard with teasing challenge and AlHassan, a boyish gazelle, flashing a radiant smile. The women, Rita Esinam and Rita Tawiah, are more demure, only occasionally flirting with the audience in solos.

All four dancers dazzle, with thrusting hips and pelvises, arms that scoop and flick and whip, and legs that sweep to the side so freely you're scared someone might dislocate a hip. The dancers rotate their arms as if swimming the butterfly in "Saba," a dance done at birth ceremonies in Senegal. "Kpele," a Ghanaian festival dance, features remarkable bent-legged split jumps done with torqued hips. "Bawa," from northern Ghana, lets Benard show off a "Jello Belly" move, his torso quivering. And in "Fumé Fumé" (sung with shiveringly beautiful harmonies), AlHassan does fouettés worthy of any ballet troupe, one leg extended as he turns again and again.

Founded by musician Nii Tettey Tetteh, Kusun is emphatically both a music and dance ensemble. As Tetteh says, life in Africa is all about the music. "We need music to work." A composer and arranger, he has created a form he calls Nokoko, combining traditional African rhythms, Afropop, and jazz—Kusun's instrumental mix includes drums and other percussion from various parts of Africa as well as the Caribbean, Tetteh on flute, and an electric guitar. There are pure-music numbers between each of the show's five dances, and especially in the song "Nokoko," you could pick up what felt like three different strands of rhythm going at one time, but each strand distinct.

Along with offering pleasures for lovers of music and dance, Kusun provides a textile feast. Against a simple but vivid backdrop of a tree with a few big leaves, most of the musicians wear tunics and pants in cheery prints featuring all three primary colors. The dancers change costumes for each of the five dances, from subdued orange and blue prints to grass skirts.

Tetteh provides a highlight of the show, demonstrating the aslatua, an instrument made of two round seed-filled gourds (think pingpong balls) joined by four- to five-inch cord. You hold one gourd in your hand and flip the other so it hits the first, and you get the tock of the gourds hitting each other plus the shusha-shusha of the seeds shaking inside. Tetteh gets one of these going in each hand and then accelerates to warp speed. And you can appreciate just how much skill this takes (I did), by buying an aslatua and trying it at home. In case you want to give it a try, Kusun is giving a workshop at the World Beat Center tomorrow (Saturday, May 24).

(The show had no program.)