The dance “Samaia” (pictured) was inspired by a fresco of Queen Tamar, Georgia’s first female ruler during the medieval period. In it, three women, crowned and bejewelled, as majestic and impassive as Byzantine icons, rotate at a regally slow speed. From the nineteen-sixties through the early two-thousands, the troupe performed often in the U.S., but in recent years its visits have been more scarce. Touring the country anew, it makes its Carnegie Hall début on Jan. 17.—Brian SeibertAbout TownFolk