Savion Glover's hip-hop style started the tap dancing revival.

Savion Glover is in San Francisco to perform his critically acclaimed (and generally sold out) improv show, "Foot Note: The Concert" at the Golden Gate Theater, but the Monterey Peninsula may get something even better when one of the world''s most extraordinary tap dancers comes to town Oct. 31.

Although Glover, 26, reached acclaim (and won a Tony Award) at an amazingly young age with Broadway shows like Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk, it is in free form that this tap genius is really at his best. Tuesday night''s show, "The Art of Improvisation with Dance and Music," has the potential to be a truly once-in-a-lifetime performance.

Glover''s trademark musical tapping and hip-hip style are largely credited for bringing tap dancing back to its street roots--so if you go expecting tap à la Fred Astaire, you are in for an exquisite disappointment. This is cool, edgy tap dancing that is more about what you hear than what you see, but it combines technical skill and an instinctual understanding of the marriage between dance and music that Fred would have envied. Glover also has a lead role in Spike Lee''s new film, Bamboozled, in which he plays a tap-dancing street artist who becomes a modern-day minstrel.

It is an inherent principle of traditional African dance that the dancing is dictated by the music and that the musician and dancer must truly listen and respond to each other. Savion Glover has embraced this idea, turning his feet into particularly potent instruments. Almost as important as the man himself are Glover''s talented musicians, the Incognegros: Patience Higgins on saxophone, Eli Fountain on drums, Gregory Jones on electric bass and Tommy James on piano.

This performance will be largely about how Glover chooses to fuse the intense sounds of his dancing with these four musicians, but it won''t be only that. By himself, in silence, Savion Glover can pull out of a floor some of the fastest and most beautifully uneven rhythms you will ever hear. That he is not only probably the best but also the most interesting and visionary tap dancer alive today is a fact no one has really seen a need to debate. Gregory Hines (a pretty amazing dancer himself) calls Glover "possibly the best tap dancer that ever lived," and the sheer force of Savion Glover''s performances can easily turn someone without Hines'' knowledge of tap dancing into a believer.

CSUMB''s Music and Performing Arts Institute tried to bring Savion Glover to the area last year, but program coordinator Shirlene Campbell says the show had to be canceled because of a mix-up in dates. This time, let''s prove that our very non-metropolitan area is worthy of this world class artist.

Glover and the Incognegros perform Tuesday, Oct. 31, 7pm at the World Theater, CSUMB. $10/general admission;$7/students. Call the CSUMB Music and Performing Arts Institute at 582-4085 for information and tickets.