The classes just seemed to get better by the day at the New York City Tap Festival, not to mention the performances. Wednesday through Friday most classes were structured as 3-day courses which allows students to get a lot more out of the class.
In Barbara Duffy’s class we continued working on a combination she created to Miles Davis’ All Blues
Here is a picture I took with Barbara Duffy on Friday after our final class meeting.
It’s hard to describe what happened in Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards’ classes over the remaining two days. The steps that seemed impossible to do on the first day, suddenly became easier to execute the next two days. By the end of the course we had a combination that included slides, turns, and intricate rhythms all executed with a musicality that I am still striving to produce in my own choreography.
Last but certainly not least was a Brazilian tap class with the amazing Christiane Matallo from Brazil. She taught a combination that incorporated the traditional rhythms and movements of Brazilian culture in a way that was unique and expressive. This class was taught with live music as her husband, Gilberto de Syllos, provided rhythmic guitar licks to accompany us. I think this class might have been better offered as a three day course to give the students more time to further explore the nuances of Brazilian tap.
The image below features Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards to my left and Christiane Matallo to my right.
Over the next few days I will be posting video clips that feature each of the instructors that I studied with in New York.
View My Previous post from the NYC Tap Festival
0 Comments For This Post
6 Trackbacks For This Post
August 22nd, 2007 at 11:16 am
[...] I actually attended Tap City this year for the first time and blogged about the tap classes. [...]
October 18th, 2007 at 11:53 am
[...] honor of the New York City Tap Festival I decided to link to my two-post critique of festivals. Here they [...]
November 29th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
[...] instructors include Brenda Bufalino, Nicki Denner, Barbara Duffy, Mercedes Ellington, DeWitt Fleming Jr, Derick K. Grant, Jared Grimes, Constance Valis Hill, [...]
January 16th, 2008 at 10:11 am
[...] year when I attended the New York City Tap Festival, I met an awesome tap dancer by the name of Sarah Reich. Recently I did an audio interview with [...]
September 30th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
[...] year they host Tap City, The New York City Tap Festival in July drawing in dancers from all over the [...]
March 8th, 2010 at 3:16 pm
[...] a class with Jason Samuels-Smith though we have talked tap a lot, especially when I attended the New York City Tap Festival a few years back. Though always a very-talented dancer, I am blown away by what he has accomplished [...]
Leave a Reply