Tap in the city: ATDF's "Rhythm in Motion" takes wing

American Tap Dance Foundation presented
Rhythm in Motion at ATDF's Tap City festival.
(photo: Amanda Gentile)

This year's Rhythm in Motion--part of the well-loved TAP CITY, the summer festival of all things tap--might be artistic director Tony Waag's best show ever. No trace of bloat, fluff or cornball, just expert, all-in, radiant power tap for nearly two hours. This is tap right on time and into the future. And diverse aesthetic styles with something for everyone--from lovers of Brazilian samba to Fats Waller to Steve Reich--and millions (they wish) served. Really, if you came away not finding something to cheer hard about here, I'm worried about you.

I regret that this show--presented at Symphony Space, long-time partner with Waag's American Tap Dance Foundation--ran only one night. People, can we do something about this sort of thing? The show I saw last night felt downright historic. Certainly, there were standout and breakout dance artists on the bill, and a viewer might even start contemplating...hmmm, yeah....some award nominations. Just sayin'. But, seriously, Bessies committee, start taking a wide-angled look at some of what's happening in tap these days.

I loved so much, but I will long remember the matchless, grounded, joyous confidence of Brinae Ali's Ndizzy Spellz; the always-surprising Caleb Teicher falling off his high heels then proceeding to kill it with yet one more unexpected strategy around tap and space and theatricality; and the all-women Full Circle Hardrocks's sharp cheerleader moves for Rokafella's The Drums Say Africa; and Lisa La Touche's Tap Phonics trio in the propulsive, offbeat Fragile. These artists do more than make tap "relevant" today; they offer no excuse to ignore tap.

Also serving some awesome tap on this program:Chloe Arnold and Robin Passmore, Christina Carminucci, Michelle Dorrance (with collaborating choreographer/improvisers Hannah Heiler, Melinda Sullivan and Josette Wiggan), Felipe Galganni, Charles Renato, Tami Sakurai, Delores Sanchez, Leo Sandoval, Samara Seligsohn and Nicholas Van Young.

Rhythm in Motion is closed, but there's one more event (Friday, July 13) you can enjoy before the season finishes up:

"TAP IT OUT" -- a free, public outdoor tap dance event at 1pm, 1:30pm, and 2pm at Father Duffy Square/Times Square (Broadway, West 46th Street to West 47th Street, 7th Avenue, Manhattan). Adult and pre-professional students create a chorus of hundreds of tapping feet. The contemporary percussion and movement "soundscape" promotes tap dance as pure music, while consciously deconstructing the basic elements that propel tap forward.

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It's a milestone: Nierenberg films on tap at Quad Cinema

The late tap dance great Chuck Green in Harlem
At right, Harold "Sandman" Sims and Bunny Briggs
(still from No Maps on My Taps, 1979,
by George T. Nierenberg, courtesy of Milestone Films)

Two more giants of the art:
Gregory Hines embraces his mentor Jimmy Slyde.
(photo: George T. Nierenberg, courtesy of Milestone Films)

Time has taken from us all of the beloved master innovators and mentors shown in the photos above. But contemporary tap lives and shines in exemplars like Savion Glover, Michelle Dorrance, Jason Samuels-Smith, Chloe Arnold, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Derick Grant, Ayodele Casel, Max Pollak, Roxane Butterfly, Caleb Teicher and a slew of eager youngsters coming up behind them. That torch keeps getting passed and won't go out as long as there are places where people can see and appreciate the riches tap has to offer.

Filmmaker George T. Nierenberg was an early hero in tap's recovery from the rise of television and rock 'n' roll, changes in the nature of choreography for Broadway musicals, and the subsequent loss of tap venues and gigs. His two intimate and beautiful films, No Maps on My Taps (1979) and About Tap (1984), featuring chats and performances by Chuck Green, Bunny Briggs, Harold "Sandman" Sims, Steve Condos and Jimmy Slyde, helped revive interest in the art and turned on new generations of dancers and dance educators. In 2014, American Tap Dance Foundation presented Nierenberg with its American Tap Dance Preservation Award.

Film producer/director George T. Nierenberg
(photo: George T. Nierenberg, courtesy of Milestone Films)

At Manhattan's Quad Cinema, Milestone Films will now present the first theatrical release of No Maps on My Taps (58 min) and About Tap (28 min), digitally restored from the original camera negatives, for a week-long run coinciding with ATDF's popular Tap City: The New York City Tap Festival.

I can only say, GO! You cannot fail to enjoy these films and be moved by these artists. If you can, please take some young folks who might think tap has nothing to do with them. It has everything to do with musicality, mad skills, collaboration, imagination, feeling and excellence. So, yes, it has everything to do with them.

No Maps on My Taps and About Tap open at Quad Cinema on Friday, July 7 and run through Thursday, July 13. Schedule information and ticketing will be available onsite tomorrow, Monday, July 3.

For Tap City 2017--which, once again, includes everything from shows and screenings to a ride on the Circle Line--click here to see some of what's up with tap today and what's coming tomorrow.

Quad Cinema
34 West 13th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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"Rhythm in Motion" tappers bring their A game to Program B

L-r: Gabe Winn, Elizabeth Burke and Caleb Teicher
dance one of Teicher's Variations.
Photo: Vitaliy Piltser

Live and on video,
Chloe Arnold's hard-charging dancers
lay claim to fame and New York City
in Apartment #33...Where Dreams Are Made.
Photo: Vitaliy Piltser

L-r: Japan-born tap star Kazunori Kumagai
with vocalist Sabrina Clery and guitarist Masa Shimizu
in Kumagai's Excuse Me Mr.
In the face of discouraging world events, Kumagai says,
"music always helps me and inspires me to move forward."
Photo: Vitaliy Piltser

With his Rhythm in Motion programs, Tony Waag (American Tap Dance Foundation) has created an important new resource--space for the bumper crop of contemporary tap choreography of stylistic and thematic diversity. And he has found a congenial, if somewhat confined, home for it at The Theater at the 14th Street Y.

I missed this season's Program A. But, lordy, Program B--with works by Chloe Arnold, Felipe Galganni, Susan Hebach, Kazu Kumagai, Michela Marino Lerman, Caleb Teicher and Nicholas Young--was killer.

Introduced by Waag's appealing video montage of dancers at work and play in ATDF's studios, the show raced through ninety tightly-structured minutes of cool. Cool enough that even sand dancing--by a trio from Hebach's Nica's Dream crew--looked fresh enough to be the next street dance trend. Cool enough for me to take more interest in body percussion than I usually do (Young's intricate and social justice-minded WhiTeNoiSe). And even cool enough that the show's most traditional piece--Stardust, Marino Lerman's jazz duet with partner Dan Mitra--sustained its easygoing ways at length without wearing out its welcome.

More highlights included new pieces from Teicher and Kumagi.

Teicher has launched a study Glenn Gould's recordings of Bach's Goldberg Variations, and Waag wove three of these trios--so far, he tells me, there are nine--throughout the Program B. Teicher, along with colleagues Elizabeth Burke and Gabe Winns, executes stark lines, delicate expressiveness and fiery speed with equal care. He looks poised to follow the acclaimed Michelle Dorrance into wider recognition as a striking performer and inquisitive dancemaker. Excuse Me Mr.--Kumagai's raw solo, accompanied in song and by guitar--plays the floor as a multi-voiced instrument and channel of soul. A modern rock star of tap, Kumagai holds true to its great Black ancestors while listening to his own empathic heart. And that will always be fresh and cool.

For information on future ATDF events, including this summer's Tap City festival (15th Anniversary, y'all!), click here.

Remembering Gregory Hines with Tony Waag

Gregory Hines
(photo: Greg Gorman)

American Tap Dance Foundation's Tony Waag will speak about the life and multifaceted work of master tap dancer Gregory Hines at the next Tap Talks evening, Friday, February 27, 7:30pm.

Join the tap community in remembrance of the beloved Tap Dance "Ambassador" through personal stories and video footage. Refreshments will be served.

RSVP to 646-230-9564.

Admission: $5 for the general public with FREE admission for ATDF members.

American Tap Dance Center (ATDF)
154 Christopher Street #2B (off Greenwich Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Play the floor: ATDF's "Rhythm in Motion"

Well, Tony Waag did say that American Tap Dance Foundation's spring series, Rhythm in Motion--at least, Program A of it--would be edgy. And edgy, it was. Also, the rest of what he said: "hopeful, passionate, experimental, lovely...."

"[Tap dancing] can take us somewhere we don't expect," he said. "It's no longer nostal-gyah--though we do love that."

ATDF's Tony Waag at Tap It Out 2012
(c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

At the modest Theater at the 14th Street Y, the first performance of Program A opened with a clever behind-the-scenes film by Waag, featuring a montage of breathless, high-powered tapping overlaid with "Synchronicity" by The Police. That led to an hour or more of all-the-way live tap designed with 21st Century tastes in mind--works by Nicholas Young, Michelle Dorrance, Chloe Arnold, Jason Samuels Smith, Lisa La Touche and Derick K. Grant, each making a case for tap's continued relevance as hardcore skill and art.

You might mistake Young, a tall, strapping Texan, for a country-western star, but he's a tapper through and through and, as shown here, an emerging choreographer of growing confidence. Thank you Forest, dedicated to the sound technology inventor, employs an array of tap surfaces wired for sound as he and an all-women crew--Elizabeth Burke, Michela Marino Lerman, Carson Murphy, Demi Remick and Samara Seligsohn--fire up the feet to play the floor with impressive accuracy, speed, force and assertive design.

Dorrance's bluesy improvisatory solo with guitarist Darwin Deez, Deez and Deez, is pure magic in all the little framed moments of wonder. The dancer holding firm as she drags the silver blade of her heel against the floor; catching the guitar's spare lines of sound at odd angles and whipping her lines all around and around them; pulsing waves of movement through the length of her lanky body; dazzling us with her killer feet then looking straight at the guitarist as if to say, "What you got now?" As an ensemble choreographer and director, too, she's the genuine article, able to transfer what's great about her personal style--loose, earthy, full-bodied insouciance--onto others with no artificial aftertaste. Last night's superb cast of She's Alright included Burke, Murphy, Remick, Young, Megan Bartula and Caleb Teicher, and you can tell she has inspired them.

Arnold's two pieces for her exuberant troupe Apt 33 emphasized hard-charging, tight arrangements to popular urban music ("So Fine" by Jamaican reggae star Sean Paul and "Not Afraid" by Eminem). Samuels Smith's solo + ensemble, Acasmellyah--its title, a tapper's play on the word acapella--is so masterfully sharp, finely complex, roaring in sound and mesmeric in effect that it's hard to believe that Rhythm in Motion wouldn't just stop there and let us stagger home.

Derick K. Grant
(c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

But there was more to come. La Touche with musical collaborator/dancer Sean Jackson and fellow dancers Brittany DeStefano and Karissa Royster brought We Used to Hold, partly set to an Erykah Badu song, innovative in staging and sound and with occasional subtlety and sexiness. Grant's Buzzcut Season, using the Lorde song, scatters a roiling mess of dancers in school uniforms around the space. Now and again, the galloping, spinning crowd briefly, ingeniously parts to throw focus on one or a few of its members in a floating narrative of high school life and love.

Program B will include works by Gregory Hines (staged by Barbara Duffy), Brenda Bufalino, Cartier Williams, Michela Marino Lerman, Max Pollak, Susan Hebach, and the capoeira-inspired Fuga by Felipe Galganni.

Rhythm in Motion continues through Saturday. Remaining shows include tonight (Program A at 7pm and 9:30pm), Thursday (Program A at 7pm), Thursday (Program B at 9:30pm), Friday (Program B at 7pm and 9:30pm) and Saturday (Program B at 3pm with a Tap Talk Back and 7pm).

For Rhythm in Motion tickets, click here.

For information on Sunday's Celebrating Gregory! fundraiser with guest host Bill Irwin, click here.

The Theater at 14th Street Y
344 East 14th Street (at 1st Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

A birthday valentine to tap legend Gregory Hines

Gregory Hines (1946-2003)
(photo by Greg Gorman)

Join the American Tap Dance Foundation (ATDF) at the American Tap Dance Center for Happy Birthday, Gregory! on Valentine's Day, Friday, February 14 (7:30-9pm), which would have been the tap master’s 68th birthday.  

Happy Birthday Gregory!--hosted by Tony Waag, ATDF artistic/executive director--will feature film clips and discussion reflecting on Hines’ life and talent.

$5 admission. Free to ATDF members. For information on this program and other features of ATDF's Winter Intensive, click here.

American Tap Dance Center

154 Christopher Street, 2B (at Washington Street), Manhattan

(map/directions)

Let's talk about TAP, baby!

American Tap Dance Foundation welcomes you to a special roundtable/think tank moderated by Jane Penn (Director of Development, Studio Museum in Harlem) 

American Tap Dance Center

Friday, November 22 (7:30pm)

A lively, candid and dynamic laboratory for tap dancers, students, historians, teachers, presenters, choreographers and audience members to meet and "TALK" about Audiences! Who is our audience? What do they need? Where can we find tomorrows audience today? Dance studios, commercial projects, on-line? What currently drives the ticket-buyer? and does that need to change and/or grow? Snacks and refreshments will be served.

All photos: Cartier Williams at Tap It Out!
(c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Admission: $5 in advance by calling 646-230-9564 or at the door

FREE to ATDF members!

American Tap Dance Center

American Tap Dance Foundation
154 Christopher Street #2B (near Washington Street), Manhattan

(map/directions)

American Tap Dance Center plans its September Open Houses

Lynn Schwab, Chikako Iwahori and Max Pollak of Rumba Tap
at American Tap Dance Foundations' 2012 Tap It Out
(c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

American Tap Dance Center

welcomes you to its

September 2013 

Open Houses

Need a place to make noise? Put your feet to the beat! Come check out our studios, meet the faculty and take a sample class!

Saturday, September 7, Noon to 1pm

Wednesday, September 11, 4pm to 5pm

Sunday, September 15, Noon to 1pm

American Tap Dance Center
154 Christopher Street, #2B (near Washington Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

RSVP: shebach@atdf.org or 646-230-9564

And learn more about what the American Tap Dance Foundation has to offer, such as Tap Addicts Anonymous, a brand new tap dance ensemble for adult fast beginner and advanced beginner students, and Tap Talks/Tap Films, monthly presentations, panel discussions and special events engaging the tap community of dancers, historians, teachers, writers and choreographers. Click here.

A world on tap

Cartier Williams at "Tap It Out" (c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Get ready to get tap happy when, once again, New York City becomes Tony Waag's Tap City (July 6-13).

My favorite part of American Tap Dance Foundation's legendary summer extravaganza has always been TAP INTERNATIONALS, an evening that luxuriates in the worldwide, cross-cultural phenomenon that tap dance has become. Enjoy the latest edition on Thursday, July 11 (7:30pm) at Symphony Space:

A global community of artists that  include international soloists, contemporary tap ensembles, raw talent and leading tap masters, will combine tap dance with world music, body percussion, gumboot, funk, swing, step dance, vocals, film, and storytelling.

Brenda Bufalino (US)
Flavia Costa (Brazil)
Felipe Galganni (Brazil)
Corey Hutchins (US)
Chikako Iwahori (Japan)
Ryan Johnson (US)
Kazu Kumagai (Japan)
Lisa La Touche (Canada)
Winston Morrison (Australia)
Claudia Rahardjanoto (Germany/Indonesia)
Rumba Tap (Cuba)
Lynn Schwab (US)
Tap City Youth Ensemble (Africa/US)
Nicholas Young (US)

Get complete information and tickets for Tap Internationals here.

For comprehensive information on the 2013 Tap City festival, click here.

Peter J. Sharp Theatre
Symphony Space
Broadway at 95th Street, Manhattan
(map/directions)

So you've always wanted to tap...

Absolute Beginner Workshop

a 6-week course

with

Michela Marino-Lerman

Mondays, April 29-June 10 

(no class May 27)

7:30pm to 8:30pm

at American Tap Dance Foundation

Designed especially to give new students a chance to learn the basic steps and vocabulary of tap dance, this class is a great way to learn the FUNdamental skills or "brush up the basics."

Fee: $78. To register, call 646-230-9564, or arrive 15-20 minutes early to register on the first day.

Michela Marino-Lerman first appeared on Sesame Street at the age of 5. In February 2002 she was showcased on the cover of Dance Teacher magazine with Gregory Hines. In 2005, she was named by Dance Spirit magazine as one of the 20 hottest tap dancers under 20 and in 2008, Dancemagazine named her as the only female tap dancer in its “25 to Watch in 2008.” Michela has appeared in both the Tap Extravaganza and Tap City numerous times over the past ten years. She won first prize in the Harlem Jazz Dance Festival’s, “Hoofer’s Challenge” in both 2002 and 2003. In 2002, Michela performed with Jennifer Holliday on Broadway in Nothing Like A Dame and also in 21 Below at Town Hall. In 2003, she was inducted into the famed Copasetics as their first and only female lifetime honorary member. In 2004-2006, Michela toured Spain and Japan with Rafael Amargo’s Enramblao. In the fall of 2005, her choreography was featured in the tap section of the opening number for the Bermuda Music Festival with UDP, starring Al Green, Angie Stone, and Patti LaBelle. At the age of 19, she was commissioned by Dixon Place to create and direct her own show, entitled AM+bu$h+ED. 2007 saw Michela tour Europe for 3 months as a lead dancer in the hit show Magic of the Dance and also appear in Sarah Savelli and Ayodele Casel’s Tappy Holidays. In 2008-2009, she was featured in the show hit Wonderland, an all tap show set to Stevie Wonder’s music and also in Chris Scott’s show W-L-U-V. In 2008 she appeared on CBS’s Secret Talents of the Stars with Grammy award singer Mya, performing the choreography of Emmy award winner Jason Samuels Smith. Since 2007, Michela has been a featured performer at NYC’s hottest nightclub, The Box. She recently danced with the Roy Hargrove at the Jazz Gallery and the Village Vanguard. She has also been commissioned by the American Tap Dance Foundation and HarlemStage to show her new work entitled Tapsploitation. Recently she has been co-creator in forming the tap dance company The Tap Messengers who have performed at the CareFusion Jazz Festival with Talib Kweli and Nicholas Payton in the Revive Da Live Big Band, Joe’s Pub, and HarlemStage opening for Marcus Strickland. Michela is grateful for the mentoring and guidance given to her by Buster Brown, Gregory Hines, and Leroy Myers. She has also studied with Jason Samuels Smith, Henry LeTang, Baakari Wilder, Ayodele Casel, Derek Grant, Dianne Walker, and many other gifted teachers. She has taught in numerous schools, studios, programs, and festivals throughout the world. As a performer, teacher, director, and choreographer Michela is dedicated to spreading the art of tap around the world.

American Tap Dance Foundation
154 Christopher Street, #2B (near Washington Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Get rhythm!

American Tap Dance Foundation

presents

Rhythm in Motion

Friday, March 22 and Saturday, March 23
Two shows each night: 7pm and 9:30pm

Sunday, March 24, 3pm

An evening of new work by New Yorks finest tap dancers and choreographers including Brenda Bufalino, Michelle Dorrance, Derick K. Grant, Kazu Kumagai, Max Pollak, Lynn Schwab, the Tap City Youth Ensemble and Cartier Williams, directed and curated by Tony Waag

Ticket information

The Theater at the 14th Street Y

344 East 14th Street (between 1st and 2nd Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Tap City 2012: Tapping at the marina

Max Pollak

Tap It Out

at World Financial Center marina

Friday, July 13, 2012

American Tap Dance Foundation's Tap City 2012 

ATDF Artistic/Executive Director, Tony Waag

all photos (c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

To see more photos from this set, click here.

Tap It Out

Tony Waag, conducting

Tap It Out

Tony Waag

Tony Waag

Cartier Williams

Cartier Williams

Lynn Schwab

Lynn Schwab

Lynn Schwab

Tony Waag

All photos (c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

To see more photos from this set, click here.

Tap City 2011-2012 Awards

Last year, the American Tap Dance Foundation missed the chance to give out its annual tap community awards (given since 2002). It made up for that lapse by doubling up the awardees last evening at a fun and often moving ceremony at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

The program commenced with ATDF head Tony Waag's slide montage of past winners of the Tap Preservation Award and Hoofer Award as well as inductees to the International Tap Dance Hall of Fame. The fourth honor afforded ATDF recipients is known as the Toe Knee Award--a play on Waag's name, his sometimes nickname and that little Broadway thing--which recognizes stalwart supporters. Waag surprised his two sisters--Stephanie Waag Blackmon (who was on hand) and Cindy Roush, as well as Boston-based tap instructor/producer Thelma Goldberg, with the coveted Toe Knee.

Two of the vaudevillian Whitman Sisters, including Alberta "Bert" Whitman in male drag

A video or slide show or music and dance performances prefaced each of the other awards. Highlights were many, including Sally Sommer's loving tribute to Hall-of-Famer Charles "Cholly" Atkins (1913-2003), notable not only for the cool wit of his performing but also his expert dance coaching of many of Motown's hottest acts; a dramatic slide show tracing the history of vaudeville's remarkable Whitman Sisters act, about whom, regrettably, there is no film documentation; Michela Marino Lerman gifting jazz and tap show producer Cobi Narita (Cobi's Place), a Tap Preservation Award winner, with a shimmering solo; and Max Pollak's Rumba Tap ensemble serving up a vivacious new Afro-Cuban voice-and-dance number before longtime dancer/colleague Chikako Iwahori, presenting Pollak's Hoofer Award, spoke of his formidable intensity and generosity. A momentarily overwhelmed Pollak recovered enough to quip, "Being the only Austrian who has ever gotten this award makes me want to have a beer with you all."

A trio of angels--"Charlie's Angels," from Jason Samuels Smith's recent Joyce Theater show--dropped in to rock the house, praise their champion and hand him a well-deserved Hoofer Award. It was a treat to see Chloé Arnold, Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards in action again so soon after the Joyce gig and to hear their stories. (Arnold on meeting Samuels Smith for the first time: JSS: "You tap?" CA: "Yeah, I tap." JSS: "We'll see.")

For more information on ATDF's remaining Tap City 2012 events (through July 13), click here.

TAP CITY 2011-2012 AWARDEES

2011 International Tap Dance Hall of Fame

Cholly Atkins

2012 International Tap Dance Hall of Fame

The Whitman Sisters Legacy

2011 Toe Knee Award

Stephanie Waag Blackmon and Cindy Roush

2012 Toe Knee Award

Thelma Goldberg

2011 Tap Preservation Award

Jacqui Malone

2012 Tap Preservation Award

Cobi Narita

2011 Hoofer Award

Max Pollak

2012 Hoofer Award

Jason Samuels Smith

Great launch for CDWNM with "Writing on Tap"

Brenda Bufalino

Derick K. Grant

Bufalino with Michelle Dorrance

All photos (c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

I kept wanting someone to pinch me. Was I really in a studio with Brenda Bufalino, Derick K. Grant and Michelle Dorrance? See the photos above for evidence that this wasn't just a dream.

And after this intrepid trio--plus tap historian/author Constance Valis Hill and renowned pianist/arranger Frank Owens--schooled a congenial group of dance writers, tap dancers, other kinds of dancers and tap fans about issues in the journalistic coverage of tap, they quickly broke out their tap shoes and showed us why us writers really need to step up our game.

I guess when you spend a few months focusing on the minutiae of an event--in this case, a collaboration between Tony Waag's venerable American Tap Dance Foundation and my new Collective for Dance Writing and New Media--it's easy to lose sight of the larger picture. This, ladies and gentlemen, turned out to be a momentous occasion.

And not just because of our stellar guests and their dancing.

Writing on Tap succeeded because it offered a place for writers and artists to meet, share information and learn from one another in an atmosphere of respect and fun. Tap dancers have many grievances with dance critics--everything from our lack of expertise in music (after all, tap dancers are musicians) to our inability to recognize tap-historical allusions in contemporary tap choreography to just plain indifference to the form and dismissal of it as an art. The tap field hasn't had the cohesion necessary to act in its own behalf and, if necessary, raise a ruckus. But what we saw on Saturday afternoon was the beginning of an important dialogue that could make a difference--particularly in the future work of today's up-and-coming dance writers.

More and more, I want to facilitate and participate in spaces like this one and efforts like this.

And that's a good thing, since our host, our guests and our participants are all clamoring for more of them.

So Collective for Dance Writing and New Media will find a way to keep them coming. Keep in touch with us through our site. Like us on Facebook, follow @CollectiveDWNM on Twitter and put us in your Google+ circles. In coming months, we will be inviting you to get involved in our activities and help this organization grow and do more excellent work.

We hope you'll join us!

Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Founder
Member, Executive Committee
Collective for Dance Writing and New Media

"Writing on Tap" on tap today!

Today's the big day for Writing on Tap at American Tap Dance Center with several great guest speakers and a tap jam, too!

No RSVP? There's still a little room. Come to ATDC by noon, and we'll be glad to see you!  

http://collectivedwnm.com/events

American Tap Dance Center
154 Christopher Street, #2B, Manhattan
(between Greenwich and Washington Streets)  

co-sponsored by

Collective for Dance Writing and New Media
American Tap Dance Foundation

Brenda Bufalino to dance writers: Challenge!!!

Christine Jowers and Trina Mannino of The Dance Enthusiast interview international tap superstar Brenda Bufalino here.

Come hear Bufalino and other tap artists and experts--including Constance Valis Hill, Michelle Dorrance and Derick K. Grant--at Writing on Tap, this Saturday afternoon at American Tap Dance Center. Join us! There's still room, much to learn and a lot of fun to be had.

Get full details here.

RSVP (required) here.

Michelle Dorrance and Frank Owens join "Writing on Tap"

Hot off the taps: I'm pleased and honored to announce that jazz pianist Frank Owens and Bessie Award-winning dancer-choreographer Michelle Dorrance will be joining the stellar lineup of tap experts for Writing on Tap on June 23. And reservations are going fast!

It doesn't get much better than this. Join us at American Tap Dance Center on June 23!

Information

RSVP (required)

May is tapping out all over!

La MaMa e.t.c presents

Tap Gallery: Space, Time, Tempo

a tap salon curated by 

Laraine Goodman and Allison Plamondon

Wednesday, May 23

7:30-10:30pm

New York City's first Tap Gallery Salon presenting works and riffs on space, time and tempo. Variations on vaudeville, jazz tap, funk and more.

Tap dancers: Baakari Wilder, Hank Smith, Chikako Iwahori, Eric Robertson, Megan Haungs, Toes Tiranoff and more. Indian/Contemporary dancer Noah Damer. Robert Galinsky and Susan Justice, Mary Jo Lombardo, Susan Sherman and Maggie Craig

Musicians: Akayko Shirasaki, Debbie Kennedy, Bernice "Boom Boom" Brooks, Heather Paauwe, Rachelle Garniez, David Conrad

La MaMa La Galleria
6 East 1st Street (between Second Avenue and Bowery), Manhattan

F train to Second Avenue or Broadway-Lafayette
N or R Broadway/Astor Pl
6 train Astor Place

Suggested donation: $15

For information and reservations, email: lamamatapgallery@gmail.com

Laraine Goodman: 646-263-7926

*****

And don't miss American Tap Dance Foundation's numerous 25th Anniversary youth program events and adult student showcase (May through June) leading up to this year's Tap City festivities in July. Information here.

For information on Writing on Tap (Saturday, June 23)--a special presentation of Collective for Dance Writing and New Media co-sponsored with American Tap Dance Foundation--click here. RSVP early!

Love tap dance? Join CDWNM & ATDF on 6/23

Love tap dance?

Hold this date:
Saturday, June 23 (Noon to 4pm)

Here’s your chance to hear more about the international tap dance phenomenon directly from its top professionals and experts!

Collective for Dance Writing and New Media and American Tap Dance Foundation invite you to Writing on Tap: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Tap But Were Afraid to Ask on Saturday, June 23, Noon to 4pm.

Hosted by Tony Waag’s ATDF at New York’s American Tap Dance Center, Writing on Tap will offer a provocative, interactive forum featuring talks by Constance Valis Hill, dancer and author of the essential and lively tap history, Tap Dancing America, A Cultural History, and the multitalented Brenda Bufalino, internationally acclaimed for her singular style and innovation in dance and choreography, among other special guests to be named later. Fans, performers and dance writers are all warmly welcome to this afternoon of informative talks and small group discussions on issues in tap.

American Tap Dance Center
154 Christopher Street, #2B, Manhattan
(between Greenwich and Washington Streets)

Admission: $10 (cash at door). Space is limited. Reservations are required. Please RSVP to collectiveDWNM@gmail.com.

For more information, download a copy of our Writing on Tap press release here.

You will find Collective for Dance Writing and New Media on:

Twitter

Facebook

Google+

Gregory Hines Youth Scholarship Fund [video]

Gregory Hines Youth Scholarship Fund (2:56)
A project of the American Tap Dance Foundation


Scholarships are given all year to kids ages 3.5-19 for various youth tap dance training programs. For all information, including application details and deadlines, click here.