Dorrance Dance

dorrance
dance
new york
PRESS KIT
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DORRANCE DANCE / NEW YORK
“an odd, seemingly
impossible marriage of
tap and modern dance
that came off edgy,
seductive and smart.”
– SID SMITH, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE
VISION
Dorrance Dance / New York aims to honor tap dance’s uniquely beautiful history in a new and dynamically
compelling context, not by stripping the form of its tradition, but by pushing it: rhythmically, aesthetically and
conceptually. Street, club and experimental dance forms – all of which are American dreams – awake to the sound
of furious rhythms, and find their boundaries missing. Tap dance, America’s most long-standing indigenous jazz
vernacular, is here to receive its due.
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DORRANCE DANCE / NEW YORK
“they don’t just show off
prodigious technical feats,
they become a community
of characters who hint
at engaging narratives.”
– KAREN CAMPBELL, THE BOSTON GLOBE
WORK
Dorrance Dance’s inaugural performance garnered a Bessie Award for “blasting open our notions of tap.” The
company has performed at Danspace Project, The Kennedy Center, The Yard, Symphony Space, Jacob’s
Pillow’s Ruth St. Denis Stage, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (CHRP), The Barcelona Tap Festival,
The DC Tap Festival, The North Carolina Rhythm Tap Festival, The Soul to Sole Festival and Beantown Tap
Festival’s “On Tap!,” all to rave reviews.
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DORRANCE DANCE / NEW YORK
“Michelle Dorrance
is not only a dynamo
in tap shoes but a
compelling, imaginative
choreographer as well...
She crafts dances with
personality, precision
and charming touches
of clever, sometimes
daffy humor.”
– KAREN CAMPBELL
THE BOSTON GLOBE
MICHELLE DORRANCE • ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Michelle Dorrance founded Dorrance Dance / New York in the spring of 2011 after devoting 30 years to
studying and performing tap dance. She’s been lauded by The New Yorker as “one of the most imaginative
tap choreographers working today,” and is the first tap choreographer to receive a Princess Grace
Choreography Fellowship. For a full bio visit michelledorrance.com.
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DORRANCE DANCE / NEW YORK
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DORRANCE DANCE / NEW YORK
In Church, Tapping Out Memorials
By GIA KOURLAS • Published March 11, 2011
Tap and Danspace Project have never really
hooked up, but David Parker, the artist-programmer
behind the latest Platform series, Rhythm &
Humor, would like to change that. On Thursday
he presented the first performance of a shared
evening showcasing Michelle Dorrance and
Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards. It was, he said, “the
culmination of a long-held dream.”
Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards performing a tribute
to Michael Jackson as part of her shared evening
with her fellow tap dancer Michelle Dorrance in
Danspace Project’s Platform series at St. Mark’s
Church.
That ambition, to see a full evening of tap at the
project’s theater, in St. Mark’s Church in the East
Village, is acoustically cogent: whether lightning
footwork leads to thunderous rhythms or softer
accents, the sound has a way of reverberating
throughout the high-ceilinged sanctuary.
Falling under the overarching Body Madness
Platform rubric, the program is part tribute show:
Ms. Dorrance’s “Remembering Jimmy” is created in
honor of Jimmy Slyde, who was known for his slide
step, which integrates sweeping leg movements
and intricate rhythmical phrasing. Ms. SumbryEdwards unveils “Blood on the Dance Floor,” in
memory of Michael Jackson — she was his tap
teacher for a decade — and Paul Kennedy, her
mentor.
“Remembering Jimmy” pays homage to a tap
master in both adoring and unaffected terms. It’s
hypnotic; the stage is alive with slippery footsteps
as dancers — dressed in white and wearing
socks — slide from side to side like a flock of
ghostly speed skaters.
Smack in the center is Ms. Dorrance, the light
within: her sunny charisma and lanky body work
in mesmerizing combination as she glides across
the floor or hits it with fury. (Her coordination and
speed are incredible.) After sharing the stage with
Cartier Williams and Caleb Teicher — a sleek
dancer who possesses a beguiling combination
of a relaxed upper body with switchblade feet —
Ms. Dorrance completes the tribute by dancing
on the raised sanctuary.
She is less successful in her four-part “petite
suite” —
somewhat tedious in vaudevillian flavor — but the
payoff is an improvisation by Mr. Williams, who
wears a shoe on one foot and a boot on the other
and at times flutters across the stage on his toes
in a penetrating snapshot of strength and agility.
“Blood on the Dance Floor,” set to a selection
of Jackson songs, is all over the place. There
is the deliriously happy “Wanna Be Startin’
Somethin’ ” (it’s right out of “Glee”); a stale,
showy duet for two men, Logan Miller and Mr.
Teicher (the woman is virtual in “The Girl Is Mine”);
and finally an introspective solo performed by Ms.
Sumbry-Edwards, whose subtle syncopation is selfexplanatory in “Gone Too Soon.”
Ms. Dorrance, to her credit, does experiment in
“Three to One,” a work for herself and two barefoot
dancers exploring the idea of an awkward or a
broken body.
In “15 Step,” the concluding number, Ms. Dorrance
and Ms. Sumbry-Edwards collaborate in a middling
reinterpretation of the Radiohead song. As the two
dancers trade steps, with a group of others clapping
loudly at the back of the stage, Benjamin B. Lee
strums a guitar, and Ms. Dorrance serenades
Ms. Sumbry-Edwards by wailing the lyrics. It’s an
aimless finale, yet sums up the night: a little bit
hokey, but with some brilliant moves.
Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia SumbryEdwards perform through Saturday at Danspace
Project, St. Mark’s Church, 131 East 10th Street,
East Village; (866) 811-4111, danspaceproject.org;
sold out.
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DORRANCE DANCE / NEW YORK
Dorrance dancers impress with fun feats
By KAREN CAMPBELL • Published May 07, 2012
ARLINGTON — Tap dancer/choreographer
Michelle Dorrance can improvise and kick it old
school with the best of them. But as she and her
spirited New York-based company showed Friday
night at Arlington’s Regent Theatre, the Bessie
Award-winner has made her most groundbreaking
contribution to the evolution of tap through tight,
polished choreographic numbers that put the genre
to the service of theatrical context.
Drawing inspiration from music ranging from
the Squirrel Nut Zippers and Fiona Apple to The
Bluegrass Reunion and Big Maybelle, she crafts
dances with personality, precision and charming
touches of clever, sometimes daffy humor. She
and her dancers, 14 in all for Friday night’s show,
dress in a variety of mostly colorful street wear,
and they don’t just show off prodigious technical
feats, they become a community of characters who
hint at engaging narratives. I think the only time I
stopped smiling was in line for the ladies’ room at
intermission.
A red-tuxedoed Josh Hilberman hung up his
tap shoes to be the evening’s amiable MC,
and tap maven Thelma Goldberg and the lively
kids of her Legacy Dance Company filled the
stage with a polished traditional hoofing routine
choreographed by Barbara Duffy. But the night
really belonged to Dorrance and her crew. “A
petite suite (revisited)” vividly showcased the
stylistic variety in Dorrance’s work, from the
hard-stomping precision of “the Machine” to the
rubbery-limbed looseness of “the Rag” to folktinged line dance in “the Waltz.” The group’s
men got to tear it up in “the Boys,” with a sassy,
swishy-hipped Nicholas Young, outfitted in gold
headband and shorts, camping it up hilariously.
The world premiere of “Jungle Blues” unleashed
undulating torsos, rolling hips, and shimmying
shoulders. Knees and feet swiveled side to side
like well-oiled levers, and dancers slid across
the floor and balanced on toes. Chris Broughton
showed off acrobatic splits and flips.
Dorrance herself cut loose in an improvisation
with bassist Greg Richardson, unfurling ripples of
delicate taps or hammering out aggressive heel
stomps, periodically springing into the air, limbs
angled off center or flexed feet tapping heels like
ballet beats. In “Two to One,” Dorrance in tap shoes
and a barefoot Mishay Petronelli cast the spotlight
on legs and feet as they went in and out of synch.
Derick Grant showed intensity in a hard-edged jazz
tap improvisation, and Young pointed tap in a more
adventurous direction by dancing on a platform with
amplified pitch sensors, after first creating a looped
electronic score. But one of the most effective
numbers was simply tap at its most elemental. The
full company finale of layered, contrapuntal rhythms
thundered with a thrilling, irresistible groove.
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DORRANCE DANCE / NEW YORK
Friends in Time:
This year’s tap festival faculty concert proved tap’s relevance and transcendance
By JONELLE SEITZ • Published June 8, 2012
It was no surprise that Acia Gray lured an
impressive faculty of world-renowned, charismatic
tap artists to this year’s Soul to Sole Festival. Nor
was it surprising that the faculty concert boasted
lots of camaraderie and a sweet jazz trio. And
though Gray was recovering from a recent illness,
it wasn’t surprising to see her onstage as the
venerable concert master, ringleader, host – the
woman who graciously lets us all into her jazzy
world, which, despite its beat-happiness, is rarely
without depth.
What was surprising was the incredible
performance by New Yorker Michelle Dorrance.
In “Two to One,” Dorrance and barefoot guest
Mishay Petronelli, both wrapped in black tulle
from chest to upper thigh, did side-by-side steps
that demonstrated how the shoe itself reflexively
changes the quality and effect of the movement.
In a second section, Dorrance grooved with the
musicians, her bare legs flashing and feet flying
across the stage like fingers on a piano. But just
as I thought she was kicking her way offstage,
Dorrance grabbed a microphone. In rock-star
fashion, with her long hair whipping around her
red-lipsticked face and her feet tearing up the
stage at the mercy of powerful long legs, she
punctuated her rhythms with vocals. Backed by
overlapping jazz beats in full tilt, she sang in a
voice like Fiona Apple’s, but more raw: “How
come I end up where I started?”
I, for one, did not end up where I started. By
the end of Dorrance’s piece, I saw tap as more
relevant, transcendent, and compatible than
I ever had before. But the concert was by no
means a two-woman show. Gray’s command and
roguish humor, and Dorrance’s hardcore spirit
were in the company of babyfaced Jay Fagan’s
comic, uplifting narrative. Tapestry dancer Travis
Knights, performing with the band and singer
Penny Wendtlandt, showed a sensitive side
without sacrificing his usual power and intensity.
Mother and daughter Sarah and LeeLa Petronio,
of Paris, shared impressive skills with differently
rewarding styles; the younger Petronio’s body
percussion was striking in its fluency. Tapestry’s
charming Matt Shields paid tribute to his students
before characteristically amusing himself with
challenging tricks. Tapestry alumni Nicholas
Young and Tasha Lawson, along with Katherine
Kramer and guests Carson Murphy and Ayako
Ukawa, completed the cast. As collaborators and
as musicians in their own right, the band deserves
recognition: Angelo Lembesis played piano,
Michael Stevens played bass, and on drums was
Masumi Jones, who, near the end of the program,
crouched at the older Petronio’s feet, brushing the
floor in whispering rhythms only the dancer could
hear.
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DORRANCE DANCE / NEW YORK
Unforgettable
By L. J. SUNSHINE
Sometime back in the late 1990s, Michael Jackson lay
on a dance studio floor, studying the quicksilver
feet of Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards. “How do you
make all those sounds so fast?” he wanted to know.
“Show me.” And so, in weekends of marathon practice
over the next 11 years, that’s just what she did. The
King of Pop’s tap training wasn’t the first time that
royalty engaged a private dance instructor. But it
may have been the first time that such a master was
a Mrs. Sumbry-Edwards is one of the greatest tap
dancers walking the planet today. Her technique is
astonishing, her stage presence disarmingly elegant.
A professional since childhood (in Black and Blue),
she’s been routinely singled out with leading roles and
was the first woman to be cast in Bring in da Noise,
Bring in da Funk. Five years ago she created a stir
by offering classes—provocatively called “Mastering
Femininity in Tap”—on tapping in heels. Now she
performs freelance and runs Harlem Tap Studio with
her husband and fellow dancer, Omar Edwards.
When word got around that Danspace Project was to
present Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia SumbryEdwards: A Shared Evening to open its “Rhythm &
Humor” series, the show quickly sold out.
The 75-minute performance loops from sublime to
ridiculous and back in a collision of spectacle and
style, glamour, and quirk. If there’s a theme unifying
the two artists’ work, it’s tribute: Dorrance’s to
Slyde, Sumbry-Edwards’s to Jackson and her
mentor, Paul Kennedy. The Danspace sanctuary
inspires Dorrance to play with perspective, scale,
and footwear. (None, that is.) Sumbry-Edwards
sticks to a more conventional staging and aesthetic,
her Broadway-ready work worlds away from typical
Danspace fare. Thanks to the choreographer and
guest curator David Parker for inviting them to
perform.
Dorrance, too, is one of tap’s luminaries (with
deft footwork and natural comedic gifts, she was
a perfect complement to Sumbry-Edwards in
Jason Samuels-Smith’s Charlie’s Angels). Her
Remembering Jimmy begins in the dark, the
sanctuary rumbling with syncopated footfall, a
muted drum. Lights fade up: blue glow. We’re at the
edge of a clearing witnessing a white-clad tribe in
stockinged feet enact a slip-slide-stamp ritual in the
far beyond. They could be shades or angels; their
repeated stepping seems
Unforgettable - metered by breath and makes the
sanctuary softly boom. Cross currents of movement
and counter-rhythms interrupt
the pulse; a group splits off and orbits the flock.
Dorrance scuttles in a stork-legged scoot, forms
a tight trio right before us, seems to vanish, then
reappears, spotlit, on the horizon. She’s in tap
shoes now. Her percussive oration builds to a
roar—her body opening out in double-winged Xs,
and ends with a fanfare that elicits cheers.
Dorrance has an eye for spectacle and she’s not
afraid to build emotional heat. Her movement choir
shows an early modern dance sensibility: while
honoring Jimmy, she evokes Doris and Martha.
(Think The Shakers; think Primitive Mysteries.) But
slides, as Slyde himself used to
say, can never be regimented by counts. Though
performed en masse in Remembering Jimmy, each
slide we see is unique—and a little dangerous, too.
If Dorrance’s communicants share a credo, then, it’s
not Shaker-like penitence. It’s risk.
star’s image was still wholesome and his popularity
high. The choreography is suitably sunny and footmad, replete with devilishly braided patterns at
dazzling speed, and the exultant dancers look like
they’re having the time of their lives—no wonder the
audience starts clapping along. But Sumbry-Edwards
is up to more than fireworks. Her two solos (Liberian
Girl and Gone too Soon) are meditations on loss. In
the first, she is the enchanting beloved of the song.
Wearing an African print dress, she ribbons across
the dance floor, swaying her hips and curling her arms
overhead. In the second, simple tap phrases erupt in
dense rhythm clusters, statements of fact overcome
by feeling.
Throughout, the program’s 22 dancers are motor
and muse for the choreographers’ conceits. As an
ensemble, they’re musically sensitive technicians. And
they switch impressively among styles: the musical
theater of Sumbry-Edwards’s Blood on the Dance
Floor, the formalism of Dorrance’s Remembering
Jimmy, and the carnivalesque of her a petite suite.
Joseph Wiggan flashes aerial stunts and a wicked
smile; Cartier Williams taps an exegesis on the state
of his soul; Ryan P. Casey makes his 6 feet 8 inches
glide and buckle; Caleb Teicher has the fire, the
feet, and the insouciance; Claudia Rahardjanoto the
warmth and charm.
Dorrance and Sumbry-Edwards welcomed a tap
audience to Danspace and a Danspace audience to
tap: a shared evening, indeed.
Sumbry-Edwards’s Blood on the Dance Floor is set
to Jackson hits of the 1980s and ’90s, when the
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