We know that SFist has been a bit snarky about Congressional candidate Krissy Keefer, so we'd like to make amends by promoting a great event presented by Dance Mission, an organization that Ms. Keefer co-founded. Manifesti-val is Dance Brigade's three week long Festival of Dance and Social Change. Tonight, catch No Peace. No Rest. by E.P.I taph, an evening of new, cutting-edge, political works. From transgendered housewives to beatboxing aliens, from underworld angels to......

Theater isn't just theater anymore. Throw in some dance, circus, puppetry and even a bit of some horror and comic books, and you've come a long way since, say, Neil Simon....

Wednesday... can I get a definition, please? Tonight: Check out work by local emerging choreographers at ODC Theater's ODC School Pilot Program performance. Twelve bucks gets you into the 8 p.m. show (3153 17th Street, between S. Van Ness and Shotwell). Thursday: "An old man!" "A broom!" "At an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting!" Dance Mission Theater's featuring a program of improv dance by Scott Wells & Dancers. Wells won last year's Isadora Duncan award for Outstanding Choreography. The show, "U.S. or Them," will explore outside views of the United States through the terpsichorean arts. Dance Mission Theater's at 3316 24th Street at Mission and the show starts at 8. Reserve tix at 415-273-4633. And Friday: Support your local independent filmmaker and stop by the annual Artists' Television Access fundraiser from 7-11 p.m. tonight. Beer by Lagunitas, food by Rainbow, interviews with local notables by Neighborhood Public Radio, and a Powerpoint presentation inspired by Walter Benjamin, all in the service of "The Work of Art in the age of Digital Reproduction." Plus. music and DJs, and if you donate now, you get an array of text and video compilations and a shirt! $10, at 992 Valencia. ...

How good is this TV show? How good is this TV show!!! We love it! So you think you can DANCEdancendancedancedance. Any show with an echo effect in its theme song title has got to be great. The setup of the show is so fricken brilliant: 8 guys, 8 girls, all of whom dance in different styles, including ballroom, ballet, the ubiquitous hip-hop, jazz, and "lyrical" (which we think is supposed to mean modern, but is best portrayed by the guy who brought in his own mattress to dance on at his audition). Every week they pick random partners and learn the choreography for a random dance style, for your viewing delight. Dude, it is so genius watching, say, the freestyler and the ballroom dancer gamely struggling to get through the "lyrical" choreography. So many spirit fingers wiggling! Gasp as the pop-and-locker and the tap dancer flail their way through the jive! Shriek in horror as the wind machine blows open a diaphanous untucked shirt to expose pale male dancer chest! And cheeeeez, could these judges be any meaner? Clearly choreography is the career path of choice if you like to talk smack. (They were even better when they got to talk more in the earlier weeks. "They named this show right. These people THINK they can dance." Owwwwwwch! More, please!) We are glued to the TV. Glued! Bay Area connection? Four dancers hail from this neck of the -ist: lovable hip-hopper of size Allan Frias, who grew up in the Bayview and teaches dance at Dance Mission; hollow-staring Slavic ballroom dancer Artem Chigvinsev from Palo Alto who teaches at Metronome Ballroom; cheerful Pinoy jazz dancer Melody Lacayanga from Daly City; and Nick Lazzarini from Sunnyvale, who we really have no memory of at all (sorry, Nick! Did you dance the hip-hop routine, maybe?) So hey, don't call us anymore on Wednesdays between 8 and 10. We're not picking up for you! ...

[Ed. Note: Welcome one of our artsiest locals, new SFist Tanya. She goes to experimental performance art so that we don't have to!] Only three chances left to see Circo Zero perform at Dance Mission and it is not to be missed. An amalgam of circus, performance art, political commentary, with juxtapositions between angelic virtuosity and the visceral ugly nature of humanity, it is part comedy and part tragedy; the duality of being an......