Friday, June 8, 2012 at 8pm
Saturday, June 9, 2012 at 8pm
Two days of percussive dance performances and masterclasses. Special guest teachers, live ‘trad’ acoustic music.
The Beat Retreat concert is the culmination of an intensive, weeklong cooperative learning project for percussive dancers in Appalachian flatfooting, tap, body percussion, Irish sean-nós, and Cape Breton step dance traditions. Dancers and musicians from Virginia, North Carolina, Michigan, Maryland, DC, West Virginia and Massachusetts will bring a unique mix of traditional and original percussive dance to Afton’s Hamner Theater, promising an entertaining evening for audience members and providing inspiration for both wallflowers and fans of dance.
The cast of the Beat Retreat has an impressive collective resume, including performances with The Chieftains, Liz Carroll, Eileen Ivers, Nickel Creek, Footworks, Rhythm in Shoes, and Lúnasa. Many members of the group have toured internationally, and performed at venues in the US, Canada and Europe, including The School At Jacob’s Pillow, The Newport Folk Festival, Song of the Mountains for PBS, The Smithsonian Institute, The Kennedy Center, and the London production of Riverdance.
Both Good Foot Dance Company and Beat Retreat founder and Artistic Director Matthew Olwell have strong ties to the local community. Matthew grew up in Nellysford, and after touring for nine years with Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble, returned to Virginia, where he co-founded Good Foot Dance Company with partners Emily Oleson and Meg Madden. Currently living in Maryland, Matthew maintains a connection to Nelson County and Charlottesville, with yearly performances and Smiling Mountain Dance Intensive; Good Foot Dance Company’s annual summer camp that takes place at the Rockfish Valley Community Center.
Part professional development seminar, part performance, the Beat Retreat is a meeting ground where performers, teachers, and practitioners of traditional dance inspire each other and further their skills and artistry through peer-to-peer collaboration. Additionally the Beat Retreat creates new opportunities for percussive dancers, helping to shape the methodology of the participants as percussive dance redefines itself in the world of the 21st-century performing arts.
Join Good Foot Dance Company as we present the Beat Retreat. Performances Friday June 8th (pay what you can) and Saturday June 9th $10/adults and $5/children). Dance Masterclasses are Saturday June 9th from 12pm-3pm at The Rockfish Valley Community Center. For tickets call the box office: (434)361-1999 For workshop information visit www.mattolwell.com
Booking/Press Contact:
Matthew Olwell
8313 Eastridge Ave Apt 2 Takoma Park, MD 20912
mattolwell@gmail.com, c(410)212.0867
Ira Bernstein Dancing for with the Yellow Barbers at Mount Airy
"Tap dance reaches across the chasm of difference through the commonality of rhythm. I’m talking about the power of rhythm to arouse and excite, to communicate swiftly and directly, cutting through the edgy divisions of race, class, and gender. It’s a universal language that speaks not to the head but to the heart (beat)."
- Constance Valis Hill, National Tap Dance Day: Everything’s Copasetic, Huffington Post
I’m not sure about the historical accuracy some of Hill’s claims in the article below (i.e.: tap dance as the oldest of American vernacular dance forms, descended from ‘Afro-Irish,’ etc.) but the humanist in me can certainly get behind the romance of this quote.
However, a critical mind begs whether or not all tap dance practitioners would approve of Valis Hill’s appropriation of the form towards a ‘unifying’ agenda (what does she mean precisely by this? world peace? equal rights? fair trade enforcement?) Perhaps there is also space for tap dance to be used to divide, to enforce, to affront? I believe Valis Hill is correct in asserting that indeed, the embodied power of movement and sound is incredibly compelling. However, is it potentially dangerous to presume that a dance form has a singular function or purpose simply because of its ability or history of such use? Just because tap dance can cathartically unify does it mean it always will or always should? Maybe by presuming a default intention for a cultural form we are stripping it of its malleability and potential for other, unprecedented intentions, aesthetics, and agendas. If tap dance is always a ‘unifier,’ are we reducing the power and emotional versatility of this art form? Sounds like a pretty one-dimensional interpretation of a potentially hugely salient medium of movement.
Then again, since its genesis, tap dance has always been a facet of the struggle for equal rights for the black community. I am in no way disputing the importance of the dance in this discourse and its continued relevance therein. It smacks of white privilege to lament the role of tap in the African-American (aka: the American) story as ‘only’ representative of the struggle for equal rights for black people, as if the work of cultural activism through the arts was in some way less artistic. I hope tap continues to represent this!! However, I am also interested in the exploration of tap dance as a powerful expressive medium, perhaps for the struggle for other marginalized communities, or perhaps not as a tool of resistance at all. I believe that tap dance is strong enough to accommodate a broad spectrum of intentions, agendas, and aesthetics. To me, its this aspect of tap that I wish to celebrate on May 25.
National Tap Dance Day: Everything’s Copasetic
full article here
For those of you who have never seen a Shirley Temple movie, nor swooned over the elegant dancing of Fred Astaire, the million dollar legs and feet of Ann Miller, or the sexy hunkered-down “improvography” of Gregory Hines, pay mind. If you wake up on May 25, National Tap Dance Day, hearing rat-a-tat-tapping in the air, know it’s not the dementia of hearing “The Raven” under the floorboards but the sound of a million feet celebrating America’s oldest vernacular dance form.
National Tap Dance Day was established in honor of the great Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, the most beloved tap dancer of the first half of the twentieth century who brought tap dancing “up on its toes” from an earlier, earthier, more flat-footed shuffling style. From the start of the Copasetics Club — the fraternity of mostly all-black hoofers founded in 1949, and named after Robinson’s quip, “Everything’s Copasetic,” or chilled out and cool — to the passage of the resolutiondeclaring May 25 National Tap Dance Day, Robinson has been the iconic representation of tap dance, considered the “King of Tap Dancers.” But National Tap Dance Day celebrates all the elders and eldresses of tap. We say that, like the African talking drums, every rhythm that is tapped on a stage sounds out praises for its elders. Their ghosts are ever present, implicit in every step. And we honor them.
Tap dance, our first American vernacular dance form, is an intricate musical and dance exchange that evolved Afro-Irish percussive step dances like the jig, gioube, buck-and-wing, and juba to the work of such contemporary low-heeled tap luminaries as Gregory Hines, Brenda Bufalino, Dianne Walker, Jason Samuels Smith, and such hard-hitting high-heeled women as Chloe Arnold, Michela Marino Lerman, Michelle Dorrance, and Dormeshia Sumbry Edwards.
Despite its 300-year history, tap is not yet dead, though it has gone into historical periods of resurgence and decline, renaissances and deep sleeps. Despite its maturity, I claim that tap dance remains the most cutting-edge dance form on the American stage today. Why? Tap dance reaches across the chasm of difference through the commonality of rhythm. I’m talking about the power of rhythm to arouse and excite, to communicate swiftly and directly, cutting through the edgy divisions of race, class, and gender. It’s a universal language that speaks not to the head but to the heart (beat). I’ve seen audiences, upon seeing tap performances, squeal with excitement — cheering, clapping, stamping feet, shouting out uncontrollably. The rhythmic brilliance of tap is at once an intoxicating and profoundly unifying experience. I know of no other dance form that can affect that. Tap is also cutting edge because of the new generation of dancers embracing the form, pushing rhythm into new acoustic dimensions.
So I ask you, on this most happy-footed National Tap Day, when was the first time you saw/heard tap dancing? That’s a question I ask everyone I meet, and I’ve gotten a myriad of responses— from my cousin who saw Fred Astaire in Top Hat at age six and wanted to dance, despite his mother saying that dancing was for sissies, to Jeni LeGon in Hooray for Love, Nicholas Brothers in Stormy Weather, Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor in Singing in the Rain, Ruby Keeler in No, No Nanette, June Taylor Dancers on theJackie Gleason Show, and Savion Glover as the tap-dancing cowboy on Sesame Street.
So go ahead, try to remember, it’s in there because tap is in our national memory: When do you first remember seeing tap dance on film? On television? In the street? In the theater? Let me know, so I can add you to the list of tap-happy enthusiasts.
percussive dance as tap dance: the emergence of a discrete genre?
The following article outlines a program for New Westminster, BC’s 10th annual International Tap Day concert. The following quote appears, potentially representing the recorded genesis of ‘percussive dance’ as a discreet genre within tap dance, rather than as an inclusive, descriptive moniker for many world dance traditions:
“The performance will showcase various styles of tap dance, from percussive to Broadway, and will also include Irish and Jewish dance.”
Tickets for the show are available online at tickets.masseytheatre.com or by calling the box office at 604-521-5050.
Some lovely shoe music by Matt Olwell as part of a forthcoming documentary film by Jem Moore about the flute-making of Matthew’s father, Patrick Olwell. This clip features Matt dancing to the music of his brother, Aren Olwell on fiddle and Amy Hunsicker on banjo. Jem writes about this clip…
Part of the documentary I’m doing on Patrick Olwell is exploring the unbreakable connection between traditional music and dance. All of our tunes were meant to be danced to, and the best players have spent a lot of time playing for dancers. Another part of the documentary is about the passing on of traditions, and Matthew and Aaron Olwell have been soaking up tradition their whole lives. Although both can play Irish traditional tunes on flute, they have each expanded their mastery of tradition; Matthew as a professional dancer, and Aaron as an old-time fiddle player. I wanted to capture that amazing connection, so we went to Rapunzel’s Coffeehouse in Lovingston, VA, and let it rip. Matthew and Aaron are joined by Amy Hunsicker on claw-hammer banjo performing an old time tune called “Possum up a ‘Simmon tree”.
Mna Mna (Shannon Dunne and Agi Kovacs) present ‘Hunpipe’ at Joy of Motion Dance Center’s Percussive Dance Project 2012.
tapTRONIC, (aka: Zach Klingenberg and Ciaran Plummer) dancing to Flight Facilities’ (Adventure Club) remix of Crave You.
Extracts from Colin Dunne’s incredible show Out of Time. www.colindunne.com
Arthur Kampela talks about his ideas surrounding his piece MACUNAÍMA. I believe the concepts of deconstruction, of instruments making sounds initiated by gestures, and the inclusion of non-traditional sounds within the performance to demonstrate the ‘malleability of musicianship’ all bear salience for dancers and for the morphology of the shoe.
Pastels, lilies, hats, romanticized American consumerist capitalism, spats, and Astaire’s consummate choreographic genius.
Traditional English stepping danced by a Cromar lifeboat crew in the 1970s. This style of dancing continues today among the traveler families of East Anglia.
"I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful only if one hides it. When I leave town now, I never tell my people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It’s a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great deal of romance into one’s life."
Oscar Wilde (via tesslundgardh)
(Source: reemainfaithful, via thebadboybass)
