ABOUT THE EVENT

A tap dance and live music company that blurs the line between concert dance and music performance, Music From The Sole celebrates tap's roots in the African diaspora, particularly its connections to Afro-Brazilian dance and music and its lineage to forms like house dance and passinho (Brazilian funk). The New Yorker notes that the group’s “dancers, whose bodies also provide percussion, are in a constant give-and-take with musicians on piano, sax and bass. The feeling is that of being at a family reunion, in which every family member has something to say.”

Tap, percussive dance, samba, house and live music come together in I Didn’t Come to Stay. The work explores tap’s lineage and connections to other Afro-diasporic forms. Together, the ensemble embraces shared roots across the diaspora to reflect on what shapes their cultural and artistic identity and to celebrate the joy, depth and virtuosity of Black dance and music.

Led by Brazilian choreographer Leonardo Sandoval and composer Gregory Richardson, Music from the Sole’s work embraces tap’s unique nature as a blend of sound and movement, incorporating wide-ranging influences like samba, passinho, Afro-Cuban, jazz and house.

I Didn’t Come to Stay is a commission from Works & Process at the Guggenheim and was created with the support of a summer 2020 Works & Process bubble residency at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, as well as residency support in March 2021 from The Yard, an April 2021 Pillow Lab residency at Jacob’s Pillow, a February 2022 Creative residency at Chelsea Factory, and a March 2022 Works & Process LaunchPAD “Process as Destination” residency at Catskill Mountain Foundation. Additional rehearsal support was provided by the American Tap Dance Foundation.

FUNDING

This presentation of Music From the Sole is made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Mellon Foundation. The performance is also supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council and The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation. I Didn't Come to Stay is a commission from Works & Process at the Guggenheim.