Dormeshia and friends swing out at The Joyce

Dormeshia
(photo: Eduardo Patino)

And Still You Must Swing
by Dormeshia
at The Joyce Theater
December 3-8

No hype. Dormeshia has been crowned Queen of Tap and, while some might find the notion of regal hierarchy in the arts a bit distasteful, there's no denying the evidence of one's eyes and ears. Mastery is mastery. Moreover, the refined ability of this artist to make and switch up minute mental/physical calculations with every passing microsecond qualifies her for superstardom. Go see And Still You Must Swing, one of Aaron Mattocks' great tap presentations at The Joyce this season. All hail the Queen.

Dormeshia's show, which premiered in Summer 2016 at Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, teams her with veteran dancers and frequent running buddies, Derick K. Grant and Jason Samuels Smith, of whom we can never ever see enough. The tap firepower is strong with this endearing trio, as we've come to expect. But look who's also in the house: Camille A. Brown, top-notch performer and in-demand choreographer of contemporary and Broadway dance. Her unmatched embodiment of Black culture and legacy adds a distinct, dedicated underpinning of wokeness/awareness to this seamlessly entertaining show.

From left to right:
Derick K. Grant, Dormeshia, Camille A. Brown and Jason Samuels Smith
(photo: Christopher Duggan)

Jason Samuels Smith
(photo: Christopher Duggan)

And Still You Must Swing, a 75-minute suite of dances and musical interludes, has a tight, intermission-less structure with generous fun but no time for fluff. Choreographed and "improvographed" solos, duos, trios and quartets each aim, jump and achieve high spots you think can't possibly be topped, all supported by a vivacious jazz band as sumptuously warm as it is driven--musical director and pianist Carmen Staaf, drummer Winard Harper, bassist Noah Garabedian and percussionist Gabriel Roxbury. And the linkage between the lush, expressive fluidity of swing in dance and swing in music--and the roots of all this in Black experience and sensibility--comes across clearly without being forced. If you can't imagine why a djembe, the iconic West African drum, deserves to get a highlighted moment in the middle of a tap show, no one will get up and tell you. But just wait for Brown's solos; she channels the innovations of enslaved African taking back the power of intense vibration and rhythm, preserving and expressing this freedom through the body. Drums, you see, were forbidden to a stolen people but never truly silenced.

Brown adds outrageous gutsiness and quirk to Dormeshia's lineup. The charming bros--often bookending sleek, slithery Dormeshia--add hoofericious heft while dazzling us with the possibly limitless variety of ways heels, toes and sides of feet can ring changes on the meeting of metal and wood. Legs and feet fly like the digits of a 75 wpm typist.

Breathless, you eventually stop thinking How'd they do that? and surrender to your own connection to the music.

Good. They got ya.

Original music: Allison Miller and Dormeshia
Lighting design: Sue Samuels/Divine Rhythm Prod./Event Systems & Design Inc.
Costume design: Javier Pedroza

And Still You Must Swing continues through Sunday, December 8 (Wednesday, 7:30; Thursday and Friday, 8pm; Saturday and Sunday 2pm and 8pm). If any tickets remain--and that's chancy--grab them here. In the event of sold-out shows, there will be a ticket line for hopefuls starting one hour before curtain time.

The Joyce Theater

175 Eighth Avenue at West 19th Street, Manhattan

(directions)

******

DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

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"Raising The Bar" at New York's Tap Family Reunion

Last night, Da Super Villainz (top) put on a show
to honor jazz, tap and Bill "Bojangles" Robinson.
Photo: Courtesy of Billy Rose Theatre Division,
The New York Public Library Digital Collections 

Up in Harlem last night, the tap fam turned out for the signature event of the first annual Tap Family Reunion. Raising The Bar--created by formidable tap stars Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Derick K. Grant and Jason Samuels-Smith--celebrated National Tap Dance Day, birthday of ancestor Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Hosted Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the show was cookin' like the first barbecue of Memorial Day weekend. People, without exaggeration, this was one of the best and hottest shows of New York's jam-packed season. Following a brief introduction by the three co-conspirators--they do call themselves Da Super Villainz--and a blessing from renowned Debbie Allen, the evening took off with the warm, sumptuous jazz of Igmar Thomas's quartet.

Intergenerational by design, the show mixed solo turns by well-respected entertainers like tap guru Brenda Bufalino, Maurice Chestnut (Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk) and Broadway's Karen Calloway-Williams with peppy ensemble numbers created for youngsters who brought refined training, charm and notable confidence. For this celebration of two American inventions--jazz and tap--the bar for rigorous thought and execution was raised especially high by Chicago's Star Dixon (M.A.D.D. Rhythms) and Nico Rubio (Tap Company 333). Bring us more from Chicago, please.

Grant, Sumbry-Edwards and Samuels-Smith never danced in the show. But I can tell you the two guys' resounding play-by-play and grunts of appreciation (and occasional disbelief) greatly enhanced my viewing experience. Presenters, take note: From now on, I always want to be seated directly in front of Grant and Samuels-Smith--and maybe not only for tap shows.

Featured performers: Antoinette Montague (vocals), Maurice Chestnut, Karen Calloway-Williams, Skip Cunningham, Nico Rubio, Star Dixon, Brenda Bufalino

Ensemble performers: Ciper Goings, Demi Remick, Destiny Delancy, Eric Decaminada, Jalen Saint Phifer, Jabu Graybeal, Maia Dumas, Naomi Funaki and Nakya Fenderson

Musicians: Igmar Thomas (Musical Director; trumpet); Jason Brown (drums); Zaccai Curtis (piano) and Luques Curtis (bass)

Upcoming Tap Family Reunion events include a day of classes today taught by tap greats at the Ailey Studios, a jam session at Swing 46 and much more. For the full schedule of events and ticketing details, click here.

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We gon' dance now: Hank Smith's "Story of Tap" turns 20

Hank Smith, host of The Story of Tap,
remembered the late Sammy Davis, Jr.
patting his shins, before rising from his chair,
and telling them, "We gon' dance now."
(photo: Charles Dennis)

I felt myself smiling nearly all the way through dancer Hank Smith's program last night at Dixon Place--The Story of Tap: 20th Anniversary. Launched back in 1998 at the original Dixon Place with Marion Coles and James "Buster" Brown as Smith's first guests, the evening works a bit like a tv talk show...but better. Way better.

The better part is that it's all about tap and has the elfin Smith--dancer and so much more--as genial host. Better in that this edition had kickass tap stars Jason Samuels Smith and Derick Grant as guests along with Ayako Shirasaki, a jazz pianist whose playing is simply delicious. Better, too, because you're not home on your couch in front of a screen. You're just a few feet from the action, helplessly smiling.

The Story of Tap offers Smith a venue for humorously chatting up colleagues and idols about how they started and built their careers; who taught and mentored them; the grand inspirations--like Gregory Hines and Jimmy Slyde--they most miss; places where their skills were tested and honed; values that drive them to this day; issues that continue to intrigue them. Conversation, illustrated by archival photos and video clips, alternates with tap improvisations--astoundingly intricate or blistering solos with each dancer setting the bar higher and higher; playful face-offs; and, of course, the traditional shim sham ensemble with friends from the audience bringing it all to a close. Shirasaki was also granted her own solo at the keys during which every last one of us fell in love and awe.

I can't urge you to go to The Story of Tap: 20th Anniversary. That story has been told. But I hope Smith plans to bring tap's wonderful stories back to Dixon Place next year and the year after that and then some.

CLOSED. For information on upcoming Dixon Place events, click here.

Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Harlem's "E-Moves" spotlights emerging dancemakers

Tap artist Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards
with trumpeter Igmar Thomas
in Jason Samuels Smith's Going The Miles...
(photo: Marc Millman)

The coziness up at Harlem Stage Gatehouse for last night's E-Moves opener was enhanced by Simone Eccleston's generous, frequent expressions of welcome and thanks. As Interim Director of Programming--replacing the now @large Brad Learmonth--Eccleston has much to uphold and to celebrate: a unique, beautiful home for the arts in Harlem, a strong international community of creators and performers, a history of events that have made and continue to make memories.

Of the four commissioned dances, Jason Samuels Smith's Going The Miles... deserves to enter venerable Harlem Stage history. You'll never go wrong featuring tap champs like Samuels Smith, Derick K. Grant and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards. But the combination of that triple-threat sonic powerhouse with the intimacy of the Gatehouse was mindblowing. The closeness offered the chance to watch, but never quite fathom, how six feet can split musical moments into flickering microseconds, lending the overall fabric of music a refined, shimmering texture. Grant loves, is especially adept at, small, unexpected delicacies. Collaborators Igmar Thomas--a masterful trumpeter--and bassist Alex Hernandez take a journey through a trio of Miles Davis works, from 1955-1963 contributing to one of the most satisfying musical performances of this or any season.

Although already world-renowned in tap dance, Samuels Smith joined the E-Moves lineup as an "emerging choreographer," mentored by Broadway's Ted Levy.  Okay. But what of his lesser-known colleagues on the Harlem Stage bill?

Davalois Fearon in Water, Thirst & Storm
with video art by André M. Zachery
(photo: Marc Millman)

Davalois Fearon--actually a frequent critics' favorite for her dancing with choreographer Stephen Petronio--is not new to the spotlight. But as she ventures out more as her own dancemaker, we can see a personal, introspective focus that tempers crowd-pleasing, quirky agility. In her and her dancers' movement for Water, Thirst & Storm--as well as a bewitching video by collaborator André M. Zachery--she puts a quiet, ritualistic beauty in the service of expressing nature's power and preciousness. The work shown here has been excerpted from her developing project, Consider Water, "inspired by domestic and global water issues, like water scarcity, water quality impairment and water-related natural disasters." Without seeing Water, Thirst & Storm within this bigger context, it's hard to know how those issues might be integrated into a work of performance, but the piece is a good introduction to Fearon's evolving aesthetic.

Laurie M. Taylor's entertaining Deeper, Higher reflects a fusion of influences from modern dance to Broadway to hip hop, from African to the Afro-affirmative work of Urban Bush Women. An abstract ensemble for five women, including Taylor, it has the uplift of a signature piece, an appetizer. You definitely want to know what Taylor and her shining dancers might do next.

To appreciate Desiree Godsell's WONDERLAND a GO-GO, you're best advised to let go and let the psychedelics take your mind. Otherwise you might not know where you are or why--particularly if you happen to be way younger than me. While not exactly my flavor, despite the era it evokes, WONDERLAND a GO-GO has theatrical audacity. Salsa dancer Elvis Collado performs with stellar presence, and Godsell, herself, overflows with daffy charm best seen in her "Little Surfer Girl" number. Again, for those of you young ones, that's the Beach Boys.

E-Moves continues through Sunday, April 9 with performances at 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Harlem Stage Gatehouse
150 Convent Avenue, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Reasons to be thankful!

I have many things to be thankful for--among them, being so often surrounded by gifted, accomplished artists. This season, I had the great pleasure of moderating BRIC Arts Media's post-show Q&A with choreographer Ronald K. Brown (celebrating his troupes's 30th anniversary) and poet Cheryl Boyce-Taylor. For Ronald K. Brown/Evidence's season at BRIC, Brown and Boyce-Taylor presented a revival of Water, their 1999 collaboration. 

The Q&A followed the performance on Friday, November 13 as New Yorkers were just hearing and struggling to process the horrific news from Paris. All through our conversation, I felt the unshakable force of Ron and Cheryl's groundedness and focus. I was happy that they both emphasized how important it is for young, innovating artists to value and tap the experience of arts elders as they move forward in a field--and a world--presenting numerous challenges.

Movers and Shakers: Dance Activists in NYC
a panel at Brooklyn Historical Society
(photo: Tyrone Z. McCants)

L to r: Jason Samuels Smith, Eva Yaa Asantewaa, AntBoogie,
Tamia Santana, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Camille A. Brown
(photo: Tyrone Z. McCants)

I also had the honor of being invited, by Meredith Duncan, Programs and Communication Manager of Brooklyn Historical Society, and Tamia Santana, Executive Director of the Brooklyn Dance Festival, to moderate their panel on dance and activism at BHS. The panelists? Knockouts, all: Camille A. Brown, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, AntBoogie and Jason Samuels Smith, distinguished in their respective genres of dance and deeply engaged with community, education and social justice.

(photo: Tyrone Z. McCants)

(photo: Tyrone Z. McCants)

Despite a late-fall downpour that kept some people home, we had a good gathering and a rich, wide-ranging discussion touching on the power of the arts to shift the way we think and imagine, the fundamental importance of technical discipline, the role of the body in political action, and the perennial challenge posed by mainstream media and conventional tastemakers and gatekeepers. So often, our talk returned to the imperative that progressive artists just go for it, find their own truths, control their own spaces, creating alternatives in an end run around these barriers. I greatly appreciate the example these artists continue to set for us all.

Finally, I want to thank all of you for your nourishing support over the years. InfiniteBody continues to be here for you, and I hope you will continue to enjoy it and send your friends and colleagues my way.

Have a great Thanksgiving!

Love,
Eva :-)

Caleb Teicher: Watch those feet!

Bessie Award-winning tap performer Caleb Teicher
introduces a showing of excerpts from his work, Variations,
at American Tap Dance Center
(c)2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Perhaps you've found yourself cursing the fact that you had to watch a tap show in a theater with bad sightlines, unable to see the dancers' feet. When that has happened to me, I've consoled myself with the thought that tap is music. At least, I can listen. However, I prefer to be able to see how each dancer works those musical instruments.

Left-to-right: Elizabeth Burke, Gabe Winns and Teicher
(c)2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Watching the crisp, incisive choreography of Caleb Teicher, you will want to see entire bodies, from head to toe. Lots going on there. But the feet, in particular...the feet! You must observe how the feet--scrupulous, sensitive, clear--reveal every impulse and inflection and variation of the music--in this case, the singularity of Glenn Gould playing Bach’s ‘Goldberg Variations.’

Winns at work
(c)2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Burke at work
(c)2015, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

So, I wish you excellent seating this weekend for Tap 'N Time, the Saturday night program at Jersey Tap Fest (Bloomfield College's Westminster Arts Center), featuring excerpts from Teicher's Variations as well as works by Heather Cornell and Jason Samuels Smith.

For complete Jersey Tap Fest information and tickets, click here.

Movers and Shakers: Dance Activists in NYC panel, November 19

Please join me and some sensational guests for Movers and Shakers: Dance Activists in NYC at Brooklyn Historic Society -- Thursday, November 19, 6:30pm (FREE!)

New York City has always been a place where artistic expression and activism merge, and the dance world is no exception.

Eva Yaa Asantewaa leads a discussion about artistic expression as activism among pioneering dancers who are leaders in their genre including Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Camille A. Brown, Jason Samuels Smith and AntBoogie.

Doors open at 6pm. Event begins at 6:30pm. Please note that seating is first come, first served.

Click here to RSVP!

Brooklyn Historical Society

128 Pierrepont Street, Brooklyn

(map/directions)

Film review: Dean Hargrove's "Tap World"

New York-born tap star Jason Samuels Smith (left)
 and the late Kathak guru Pandit Chitresh Das forged an unexpected and electrifying
cross-cultural partnership, as noted in Dean Hargrove's new feature film, Tap World.
(photo courtesy of tapworldfilm.com)

Tap World's run at New York's Village East Cinema has been extended through next Thursday, July 23. Hooray, and let's talk about the important thing that this award-winning documentary from Tap Heat's Dean Hargrove does absolutely right.

No, Tap World does not offer an intellectual primer on tap history or tap technique or how hard tap dancers train, as the New York Times critic appears to have needed. It does allude to tap's origins in the African-Irish encounter in colonial America. And the mad skills necessary for its proper execution should be crystal clear to everybody--just try it--as should the discipline and loving dedication.

So if Hargrove's 72 minutes--largely derived from footage submitted by dancers from many nations--focus on how much joy, and soul healing, these dancers get from this art and how much joy they give, what of it?

Tap World does what the rest of U.S. dance could and should do. It shows why dance matters to this society and to our world. It reaches past the official arbiters of what's important about dance and instantly, solidly connects with the public. It moves people. Just like the best tap does.

"Rhythm is the language of life, the international language," says acclaimed dancer/actor Ted Louis Levy, one of numerous tap artists and teachers sharing thoughts and personal narratives here. "The simple things--rhythm and love--transcend difference," says Chloé Arnold, the dynamic performer and dancemaker who, along with sister Maud Arnold, is one of the film's producers. That philosophy informs the entire film. We're treated to a virtual world tour watching how this once uniquely American art form has enchanted and fulfilled dancers of one country after another--from France to Taiwan, from Brazil to India. Dancers the world 'round use tap to expand and express themselves.

Yet, as Kathak soloist Rachna Nivas lucidly explained in last evening's post-screening Q&A, tap remains itself, never blending in a "fusion" with other cultural forms. Hargrove includes a tantalizing sample of one such intercultural moment, an excerpt from a shared performance by two greats in their respective fields--Jason Samuels Smith and Nivas's teacher, Kathak guru Pandit Chitresh Das, who died this past January. When these two live wires connect, the energy will rock you right out of your seat.

See Tap World in New York City--now through July 23--
at Village East Cinema (directions).
Click here for times and tickets.

Now playing

at select theaters nationwide

Click here for scheduled screenings,
live performances and Q&As.

Watch for the DVD release this November.

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)

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

Jason Samuels Smith's tip of the taps to Charlie Parker

Read my Dance Magazine review of Jason Samuels Smith's tap show at The Joyce Theater. Click here.

And ignore that photo. All that hair is gone now. New summer look, I guess!

Love tap?

Do you love tap the way I love tap?

If so, there's lots of it here to enjoy, thanks to Jacob's Pillow Dance Interactive!

Tap City 2010

Here's my Dance Magazine review of Tap City 2010: The Main Event at Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, Symphony Space, July 9.

Jason Samuels Smith: On time!

The fabulous Jason Samuels Smith--along with Ohad Naharin, Sara Rudner and Allegra Kent--will be picking up a Dance Magazine Award tonight. Make some noisssse!

Check out "The Time Step with Jason Samuels Smith."

Jason's angels rock The Kitchen

Let's keep this short and sweet, since you don't really have a lot of time to get tickets for Charlie's Angels, the tap dance production created by Jason Samuels Smith, given its New York premiere at The Kitchen. Curator Rashida Bumbray--who taps herself and has brought a wonderful tap jam to The Kitchen--seems intent on making this home for experimental arts a place to see a classic art swing out its juiciest experiments. Well, Samuel Smith's experiment--after three years in development--turns out to be a doozy.

The angels in question are celebrated tap dynamos Chloé Arnold, Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, and the Charlie in question is Parker. The mission? To faithfully tap out the notes and rhythms in Parker's bebop, no matter how devilishly fast and complex.

Do they do it? And how! They get it done, note for note, and with Arnold's irrepressible radiance, Dorrance's punkish footwork, and Sumbry-Edwards's mastery and elegance. And they do it, mainly, in high heels--backwards, forwards, side-to-side.

Highlight's include the trio's powerhouse opening ("Donna Lee"), freer-swinging audience faves like "Half Nelson (original take 2)" and "Cheryl," Sumbry-Edwards's flowing "Embraceable You," and the amazing closer, "Salt Peanuts."

The show also boasts excellent lighting by Sue Samuels, intricate, imaginative costuming by Gingie McLeod/Dindi Designs, spoken word by Craig 'muMs' Grant, and the delicious saxophone playing of Stacy Dillard in evocative interludes. Just under an hour, it moves so swiftly that, when it's over, you'll be left blinking in amazement.

So, get over there! There are two shows today: 3pm and 8pm. Here's the info/ticket link.

Cookin' in The Kitchen

It's a Shim Sham shame if you did not get to see, just to name a few, Sarah Reich, Michaela Lerman, Jason Samuels Smith and--be still, heart--Tamango, tap's sly master of grace and fluidity, cooking up a mess of tap dance at The Kitchen. All that plus the irrepressible MC-ing, storytelling, opinionating, mesmeric performing and overall moral leadership of Harold Cromer, who commanded the night like a five-star general. Can we maybe seriously pressure curator Rashida Bumbray to schedule this Shim Sham jam more than just once per season? Not enough. Not nearly enough joy in our lives these days.

Catching up with New York

Back from the powerful earth of Arizona, I managed to haul my jetlagged self to Hoofers' House at The Kitchen (curated by Rashida Bumbray and MC-ed by Jason Samuels Smith) on Friday night and to La MaMa Moves Festival's "Dancing Divas" evening on Saturday evening (curated by Nicky Paraiso and Mia Yoo and featuring works by Vicky Shick, Jodi Melnick, Pam Tanowitz, Barbara Mahler, Sally Silvers and Sara Rudner). Lovely, sensitive and interesting moments were in good supply at La MaMa Annex, but the mamadiva who moved us most had to be Rudner, one of my dance-crushes from way back, whose Positions--The All Star Variation was a true, openhearted gigglefest. I loved its extravagant size, its combination of the serene and the silly, its total lack of taking itself seriously. My kind of extravaganza with amusing performances from John Scott and Chris Yon among a bevy of downtown dance beauties, Rudner among them. Look for my Hoofers' House review on DanceMagazine.com sometime down the line.

Rashida Bumbray: Body and Soul podcast

The Kitchen, located in Chelsea, and The Studio Museum in Harlem have a couple of exciting things in common. Both centers herald innovation in the arts. And now both have Hoofers' House--an intimate tap jam session celebrating tap dance on the cutting edge. Rashida Bumbray--who co-founded Hoofers' House at SMH and now serves as Assistant Curator at The Kitchen--joins me to talk about this new partnership and The Kitchen's upcoming free event, hosted by master tap dancer/teacher Jason Samuels Smith (May 23).

BIO

Rashida Bumbray is a dancer and curator living in Harlem. While Bumbray's primary dance form is tap, she has studied with international dance masters of various forms in Brazil, The Gambia, and London. Her personal work combines her passion for dance and visual art in the interest of creating and presenting work that interrogates society and inspires transformation.

Bumbray has been Assistant Curator at The Kitchen since Fall 2006. Previously she enjoyed a five and half year tenure at The Studio Museum in Harlem, as Curatorial Assistant and Exhibition Coordinator. She is co-founder and curator of Studio Sound, the Studio Museum's lobby music installation which featured new works by Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR), Marc Cary, and Charlie Dark’s The Black Atlantic Project: a musical chain letter. Recently she co-curated the exhibition Mai-Thu Perret: An Evening of the Book with Debra Singer and has organized several music events at The Kitchen, including new concert works by Pheroan akLaff, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Guillermo E. Brown, Min Xiao-Fen, and Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber. She is also the co-founder of Hoofers’ House, the Studio Museum's quarterly jam session for tap dancers, which is now co-produced by The Kitchen.

EVENT

Hoofers' House, May 23, 8pm. Free. For details, visit The Kitchen site (link below).

LINKS

The Kitchen
http://thekitchen.org

The Studio Museum in Harlem
http://www.studiomuseum.org

Jason Samuels Smith
Divine Rhythm Productions
http://www.divinerhythmproductions.macwebsitebuilder.com/
JasonSamuelsSmith.html

Body and Soul is the official podcast of InfiniteBody dance blog at
http://infinitebody.blogspot.com. Subscribe through iTunes or at
http://magickaleva.hipcast.com/rss/bodyandsoul.xml.

(c)2008, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

MP3 File

Ayodele Casel and Jason Samuels-Smith

An interview with tap superstars, producers and educators Ayodele Casel and Jason Samuels Smith (July 2007)

MP3 File

Podcast interview with tap superstars Ayodele Casel and Jason Samuels-Smith

What a thrill to have tap superstars Ayodele Casel and Jason Samuels Smith as my first interviewees on Great Dance Podcast, the new series produced by Great Dance blogger Doug Fox! Their openness, generosity and exuberance made our half-hour just fly by, and I know you'll sense the passion and serious dedication they bring to their craft. Check them out at Tony Waag's great Tap City festival, running this week, Wednesday through Saturday at the Duke on 42nd Street. For a schedule of programs and ticketing details, click here. And don't forget to subscribe to Great Dance Podcast!