With monuments and museums, Washington, D.C. is a haven for history buffs. But what do most of us really know about Virginia?

The Kathy Harty Gray Dance Theatre will combine a history lesson with dance with two performances of “Women in Virginia and Other Favorites” this weekend at Northern Virginia Community College's Alexandria campus.

The performance will include excerpts of the company’s touring program “Stories to Remember about Women in Virginia”, which covers 400 years of history, and transports the audience through tales of women who were born or worked in Virginia. While many of the events are truly not of our time – the settlement of Jamestown and the American Civil War, for example – the end of the program brings the audience closer to the present with the music of Patsy Cline and Ella Fitzgerald, both Virginia natives.

This Alexandria-based professional modern dance company is known for its education and outreach efforts. Artistic Director Kathy Harty Gray began researching the history of women in Virginia with the intent of preparing something for the Celebration of the 400th Anniversary of Jamestown settlement.

“We decided to do the story in chronological order and it started to be very intriguing and we kept embellishing the project," said Gray. "I knew Patsy Cline was from Virginia but I never knew Ella Fitzgerald was from Newport News.”

Gray comes from a large family of eight that was always inquisitive about her love of modern dance, leading her to realize that the public needed more information when they attended performances.

“I’ve always felt that I needed to give more information about the dances for them to understand what I am doing,” Gray said. “They ask a lot of questions and I felt that this was a way of reaching out to the general public. If they didn’t understand, I was sure that there was a whole group of folks that felt the same way.”

In 1980, her program “The History of American Modern Dance” was born, and Gray has continued to create informative performances ever since. Personally trained by American modern dance greats like Martha Graham and Jose Limon, and Anna Sokolow, Gray is a rare direct link to these masters.

The Kathy Harty Gray Dance Theatre will celebrate its 30th anniversary in 2008, with over a dozen performances across Virginia and an intention to tour outside of the state and abroad. Another program called “Sharing World Cultures” is being prepared this spring as well.

Catch the program on Sunday, Nov. 4 and 1 p.m. and Monday, Nov. 5 at 7:30 p.m. Both performances are in the Tyler Building Auditorium