Philadanco has invaded Pittsburgh over the years like the kind of infectious disease we'd all like to have. Bursting with a glad spirit, tumbling over the movements like kids at play, striving for a sizzling connection between each and every member of the audience, this company puts fellow Philadelphia icon Rocky to shame.

		More information Philadanco also will conduct a matinee performance for students K-12 on Friday and will lead an adult master class on Saturday at 10 a.m. Space is limited. Information: 412-258-2700.

Now, to celebrate its 35th anniversary and 45 years for artistic director Joan Myers Brown, the party won't stop all year long. And it's only just begun, at the trendy Joyce Theater in New York City. It moves on to Pittsburgh's Byham Theater this week with a program featuring "We Too Dance: African American Men in Dance."

It's the first program to be presented by the fledgling African American Cultural Center. The curved four-story metal and glass edifice of the center, to be built on the 900 block of Liberty Avenue near the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, is still a dream on the horizon, but president and chief financial officer Neil Barclay is ready to set sail with a year of programming that will test the waters for his audience.

Still in the "schematic design phase" with architect Allison G. Williams, with whom he is working out the building details, Barclay feels that he's "on target" collecting pledges from local and national foundations, corporations and individuals. He calls it a parallel "silent phase."

"When 50 to 75 percent of the fund-raising is completed, we'll go public, probably in February," Barclay explains.

Up until now he has been initiating residences with top-notch African-American choreographers Ronald K. Brown and Ralph Lemon, and he will experiment to determine what his constituencies want to see. But when it came to the first full-scale theatrical presentation, Philadanco alone fit the bill.

"Philadanco has a great history in this community with summer camps, workshops and numerous performances with the Pittsburgh Dance Council," says Barclay. "They have built a presence in the community. Besides, Joan is an old and dear friend. We go way back, and I am thrilled to work with her again.

"I have presented Philadanco in four or five of my various incarnations. I know the repertory, know the dancers, know the choreography. This program really fits the company well. It's a great reintroduction to Pittsburgh, and I think the audiences will love it."

Myers Brown, 72, feeling as though she's 27 and sounding like it over the phone from her studios on Philadanco Way in Philadelphia, is, for once, somewhat at a loss for words when she hears of Barclay's praise. "He's a wonderful person, a good man," she responds at last. "He will work his butt off to make it happen and make it right."

That sounds like a male version of Myers Brown to all who know her.

She has been a driving force in African-American arts, and dance in particular, for all of those 45 years and more. In addition to running her school and company, she established the International Association of Blacks in Dance in 1991 and is a distinguished visiting professor at the University of the Arts and a member of the dance faculty at Howard University. With a list of awards that keeps growing, she was recently honored as one of five "Dance Women; Living Legends" in New York City. She even served on the planning committee for development of Pittsburgh's center, before Barclay ever entered the picture.

Right now she's trying to quiet her young granddaughter, who has just burst into the room in the middle of the interview. It doesn't take long to get back on a level of peak efficiency. Myers Brown seems to have established a connection early on with some of her best staff, such as teacher Karen Pendergrass, wife of Teddy, now in her 30th year, and Kim Bears-Bailey, former dancer and now assistant artistic director, who passed up offers for larger companies to stick with Myers Brown's Philadanco "way."

It's been an inspiration to so many, despite the hardships of continuously raising enough money "to meet obligations. You have to prove yourself over and over again." And Myers Brown admits that "being African-American is still a challenge." But, she says, "The rest is even fun," like the first year she could pay her dancers, the year she finally got a company building, the ability to provide housing for her dancers and that first Philadanco trip overseas, when the group had finally arrived.

She's still making "dancer-dancers" with a tough-love approach that teaches them discipline, technique and life skills -- in other words, how to be "Philadanco-ized." It's a little different with this MTV generation, she says, but "I keep trying."

Myers Brown brings a spate of new faces back after a five-year absence, ready to showcase the men in an excerpt from "We Too Dance: African American Men in Dance" and the women in Jawole Willa Jo Zollar's smartly named "The Walkin', Talkin', Signifying Blues Hips, Sacred Hips, Lowdown Throwdown."

Myers Brown nicknamed the women's piece "The Batty Moves," pronounced "body" with a Jamaican accent. It's all about the hips, but "done tastefully." The men will start with a lyrical nod to their elders in Eleo Pomare's "Back to Bach," and then soar in "The Blue."

The dancers will join together in Ronald K. Brown's "Gate Keeper," a work that produced a rousing standing ovation in the middle of Philadanco's last concert.