On Tap 2023

MAY 13, 2023 7:00pm

Independence Seaport Museum

On Tap

Directors’ Note Thank you for joining us for On Tap. After three years of pandemic-related lockdowns and cancelled performances, we are thrilled to finally be back onstage for our annual spring concert. So thrilled, in fact, that we decided to try something new this year. In Act I, you’ll see our Apprentice Dancers performing alongside local college students who completed an adjudication process to present their work this evening. We’re honored to have them join us, especially because so few college dance programs provide adequate support to Black vernacular dance, including tap.

In Act II, we’ll be performing to some of our favorite jazz standards, played live. Finally, in Act III, you’ll get to experience three world premieres choreographed by Katie Budris, Robyn Watson, and Michael J. Love. If you like what you see, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to our Floor Fund (because tap dance deserves to be heard!) or join us at one of our upcoming public performances this summer. We hope to see you again soon!

-Kat, Katie, and Tamera

Katie Budris Managing Director

Kat Echevarría Richter Artistic Director

Tamera Dallam Associate Director

This concert is partially supported by the Philadelphia Cultural Fund and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment of the Arts, a federal agency.

The Lady Hoofers Tap Ensemble presents

On Tap Artistic Director KAT ECHEVARRÍA RICHTER Managing Director KATIE BUDRIS Associate Director TAMERA DALLAM Production Associate MEG SARACHAN

Wardrobe Manager MARY KATE SELBY

Administrative Assistant EMILY LEDDY

Asst. Wardobe Manager DEONNA POWELL

Choreography by KATIE BUDRIS, MICHAEL J. LOVE, BECKY MASTIN, KAT ECHEVARRÍA RICHTER, ROBYN WATSON Musicians KHARY ABDUL-SHAHEED, drums JAMES SANTANGELO, keys JUSTIN SEKLEWSKI, bass Stage Managers LAURA DUTTON, MOLLY LAYDEN, RENEE THIRINGER Light & Sound EGI PRO, INC.

Public Relations CARRIE GORN

Board of Directors CAROL BARNES, KATIE BUDRIS, TAMERA DALLAM, BARRY LURIE, MICHAEL MONTALBANO, LAURA PENHALE, KAT ECHEVARRÍA RICHTER, MELANIE RICHTER, ALIZA ROSS, MEG SARACHAN, AMY C. SMITH Advisory Board SARAH FLYNN LISA LATOUCHE ROBYN WATSON

T H E

L A D Y

H O O F E R S

FIRST COMPANY

Brittany Beatty

Michaela Clovis

Jenny Husta

Katherine Moore

Deonna Powell

Meg Sarachan

Chloe Shupe

Mary Kate Selby

Kennedy Barnes

Abigail Stinson

ASSOCIATE DANCERS

Sarah Vogan

T A P

E N S E M B L E APPRENTICES

Evie Billet

Tyana Henderson Aubree Hankinson

Ariella Nelson

Sammie Smith

Aurora Migliore

Mia Spallina

Julianna Herrera

Molly Penhale

Sarah Taylor

Tara Tucci

ACT ONE Featuring The Lady Hoofers Tap Ensemble Apprentices with guest artists from Muhlenberg College and Rowan University BS CHORUS* Staging by KAT ECHEVARRÍA RICHTER Dancers The Lady Hoofers Tap Ensemble Apprentices EVIE BILLET, AUBREE HANKINSON, AURORA MIGLIORE, MOLLY PENHALE, MIA SPALLINA, SARAH TAYLOR Understudies JULIANNA HERRERA, ARIELLA NELSON

Music: “(I Feel Like) Bustin’ Loose” by Rebirth Brass Band; original composition by Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers TAKE ON ME Choreography by ERIKA DUBIN, LAURA FISHER, and RILEY HAMMETT Dancers Copacetic Rhythms, Muhlenberg College MARISSA COHEN, JOSIAH CURET, SOFIA DAVVETAS, ERIKA DUBIN, LAURA FISHER, ROSIE GILBERT, RILEY HAMMETT, ZACH HUSEMAN, ELAINA MICHETTI, MOLLY MUNJONE, BELLA PANSERA, RACHEL SCHEER, ZOE WRIGHT INTRUSIVITY Choreography by TARA TUCCI and GREGORY WILLIAMS Dancers RU Hoofers Club, Rowan University TARA TUCCI, GREGORY WILLIAMS

Music: “Three Quarter Tone Pieces [1/3]” by Charles Ives SHIM SHAM SHIMMY* Dancers THE LADY HOOFERS APPRENTICES and COLLEGE GUESTS *The Shim Sham Shimmy and the BS Chorus are both historic tap routines.

Although their exact origins are unknown, some historians date sections of the BS Chorus to the late 19th century, while the Shim Sham emerged in the 1920s and now serves as the (inter)national anthem of tap.

ACT TWO Featuring The Lady Hoofers Tap Ensemble with live accompaniment by Khary Abdul-Shaheed, drums James Santangelo, keys and Justin Seklewski, bass LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME Choreography by BECKY MASTIN Dancers KATIE BUDRIS, TAMERA DALLAM, MEG SARACHAN, CHLOE SHUPE Understudies ARIELLA NELSON, MOLLY PENHALE, MIA SPALLINA

Music: “Love Me or Leave Me” composed by Walter Donaldson CHEEK TO CHEEK Choreography by JENNY HUSTA Dancer JENNY HUSTA

Music: “Cheek to Cheek” by Irving Berlin TOO DARN HOT Choreography by KAT ECHEVARRÍA RICHTER Dance Captain: SARAH VOGAN Dancers DEONNA POWELL and SARAH VOGAN Understudies MICHAELA CLOVIS, ARIELLA NELSON

Music: “Too Darn Hot” by Cole Porter IMPROVISATION Dancers TAMERA DALLAM, JENNY HUSTA, TARA TUCCI

Music: “Sunny Side of the Street” composed by Jimmy McHugh

TAKE THE “A” TRAIN Choreography by KAT ECHEVARRÍA RICHTER Dance Captain: SARAH VOGAN Dancers BRITTANY BEATTY, MICHAELA CLOVIS, TYANA HENDERSON, JULIANNA HERRERA, ARIELLA NELSON, DEONNA POWELL, MEG SARACHAN Understudies JENNY HUSTA, SARAH VOGAN

Music: “Take the ‘A’ Train” composed by Billy Strayhorn; “In a Sentimental Mood” composed by Duke Ellington; and “Perdido” composed by Juan Tizol

INTERMISSION

ACT THREE STICK AROUND World Premiere Choreography by KATIE BUDRIS Dancers BRITTANY BEATTY, MEG SARACHAN, CHLOE SHUPE, DEONNA POWELL, TARA TUCCI, SARAH VOGAN Understudies TYANA HENDERSON, SAMMIE SMITH

Music: “Stick Around” composed and performed by Chris Bryan; arrangement by Chris Bryan and Katie Budris A LITTLE BUBBLY Choreography: Kat Echevarría Richter Dancer MICHAELA CLOVIS Understudies DEONNA POWELL

Music: “Booty Swing” by Parov Stelar

SONGS FROM THE SOLE World Premiere Choreography by ROBYN WATSON Dance Captain: JENNY HUSTA Dancers KENNEDY BARNES, JENNY HUSTA, DEONNA POWELL, CHLOE SHUPE, ABIGAIL STINSON, SARAH VOGAN Understudy MEG SARACHAN

Music: “Giving Something Up” by Amel Larrieux NOTHING BUT NOISE Choreography by Katie Budris Dancers MOLLY PENHALE and MIA SPALLINA Understudies AUBREE HANKINSON, AURORA MIGLIORE, CHLOE SHUPE #SAMPLEDMIXEDANDREMIXED: SEE-LINE WOMAN World Premiere Choreography by MICHAEL, J. LOVE Dance Captain: SARAH VOGAN Dancers TAMERA DALLAM, JENNY HUSTA, ARIELLA NELSON, MEG SARACHAN, TARA TUCCI, SARAH VOGAN Understudies AURORA MIGLIORE, CHLOE SHUPE

Music: “See-Line Woman (Masters At Work Remix)” by Nina Simone on Verve Remixed; includes samples of “See-Line Woman”

by Nina Simone on Broadway-Blues-Ballads and “The Ha Dance”

by Masters At Work on The House Of Cutting

PREMIERE NOTES Stick Around

Choreography by KATIE BUDRIS Managing Director This work uses drumsticks as an integral component of the percussion, drawing inspiration from multiple 1990’s tap works including: STOMP, Especially Tap Chicago’s “Drummin’ on a Chair,” and Sarah Flynn’s “Hardware” (which choreographer Katie Budris performed as part of Footprints Tap Ensemble in 1998). In addition to the use of drumsticks, “Stick Around” explores the collision of individuality and community as dancers play off of and with one another. The music, an original composition by Chris Bryan (the choreographer’s husband), was crafted specifically for this piece borrowing styles from artists such as Bobby McFerrin and Regina Spektor, both of whom embody a whimsical and playful tone with ample open space for adding our own rhythms.

Songs from the Sole

Choreography by ROBYN WATSON 2020 Guest Artist Commission This work is inspired by women who continue to give parts of themselves in various spaces while still wrestling with validation of their own humanity.

The music of Amel Larrieux (also the daughter of dance historian Brenda Dixon Gottschild) was a lovely match to communicate this work.

#SampledMixedAndRemixed: See-Line Woman Choreography by MICHAEL J. LOVE 2023 Guest Artist Commission

By first meditating to a 1964 recording of Nina Simone’s “See-Line Woman” and then working their way through portions of a 2002 Masters At Work remix of the same tune, choreographer Michael J. Love and The Lady Hoofers nod to the intersectional histories of jazz, house music, and the Black queer ballroom. Ultimately, with his sampling of Masters At Works’ “The Ha Dance” and layering of such sounds underneath a rhythmic vocabulary informed by Simone’s legacy as a masterful vocalist and musician, Love hopes to offer an opportunity for deeply considering the foundations of and similarities between rhythm tap and voguing—two vernacular forms maintained by bearers who must often grapple with complex questions around cultural ownership and mainstream presence.

In honor of our 10th Anniversary, we have launched our first capital campaign to raise $20,000 for the purchase of our own portable tap floor— because tap dance deserves to be heard! You can make a contribution to our Floor Fund, to our Scholarship Fund, or in support of our mission, by scanning the QR code below, visiting our website at ladyhoofers.org, via Venmo @theladyhoofers, or by speaking with our staff or board members in the lobby following the show.

The Lady Hoofers Tap Ensemble is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. All contributions are tax-deductible.

DIRECTORS & CHOREOGRAPHERS Kat Echevarría Richter (Co-Founder / Artistic Director / Choreographer) is a tap dancer, choreographer, educator, and dance historian. Her professional training began with the New Jersey Tap Ensemble under the direction of Deborah Mitchell and continued under Junior Laniyan of the London Tap Jam. In 2005, she received a scholarship to Oxford University, and later returned to the UK to complete her graduate work in dance anthropology. Kat cofounded The Lady Hoofers in 2011 with Too Darn Hot, an all-female, all-tap revue for the Philly Fringe Festival. Since then, her choreography has been praised by Lew Wittington of the Philadelphia Dance Journal for “tell[ing] great stories in tap and step idioms, less reliant on tricks and traditions and more on innovative tap artistry.” Kat also teaches dance history and all levels of tap technique at Stockton University, writes for Dance Magazine, and regularly presents and publishes her tap research.

Katie Budris (Managing Director / Choreographer) hails from Chicago, Illinois where she trained in multiple forms of dance and began cultivating her love for tap as a founding member of Footprints Tap Ensemble. She minored in dance at NASD accredited Hope College where she performed with InSync Dance Theatre, Michigan’s only professional tap and jazz company (now H2Dance Company). Katie’s prior tap performance credits include: Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, The Nutcracker on Broadway, Walt Disney World’s 25th Anniversary Celebration, Dance Chicago, Chicago Human Rhythm Project, and Chicago Tap Theatre’s Liason. Katie joined The Lady Hoofers in 2012, and quickly advanced to Assistant Director, and in 2015 to Managing Director. Her choreography “Unchain My Heart” was selected for performance at the DanceUSA Conference in 2013. In addition to directing The Lady Hoofers, Katie is a Senior Lecturer of Writing Arts and Program Coordinator for the Master of Arts in Writing at Rowan University.

Tamera Dallam (Associate Director) put on her first pair of tap shoes in 2004, and hasn’t stopped tapping since. Tamera has choreographed several winning competition dances; she also has performed as a dancer at Disney World and on Carnival Cruise Lines. Tamera spends her free time traveling up and down the east coast attending any tap festival she can find. She has taken master classes with Chloe Arnold, Jason Samuel Smith, Dianne Walker, Sarah Reich, and the Syncopated Ladies. She currently teaches multiple levels of tap at Parkside Academy of Music and Dance and works as a senior level Registered Behavior Therapist at Helping Hands Family.

Michael J. Love (Guest Choreographer) is an interdisciplinary tap dance artist, scholar, and educator. He is a 2021-2023 Princeton University Arts Fellow and Lecturer in the Program in Dance at Princeton’s Lewis Center for the Arts. His work has been supported and presented by Fusebox Festival and ARCOS Dance and he and frequent collaborator Ariel René Jackson were corecipients of the 2021 Tito’s Prize. His embodied research intermixes Black queer feminist theory and aesthetics with a rigorous practice that critically engages the Black cultural past as it imagines Black futurity. Love holds an M.F.A. in Performance as Public Practice from University of Texas at Austin.

Becky Mastin (Choreographer) native from State College, Pennsylvania, is a multiform dancer with training in jazz, ballet, and modern. Becky studied under Sarah Flynn at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Arts and has been performing in Philadelphia since 2011. Her performance credits include Too Darn Hot, a Philadelphia Fringe production, and Cross-Rhythms - An Evening of Tap Dance. Becky was a First Company Dancer, Rehearsal Assistant, and Choreographer for The Lady Hoofers from its founding in 2011 until 2016, and she continues to choreograph for the ensemble. In 2018, Becky founded Sole Purpose Tap Project with performer Theresa DeSimone. She is a public health professional and end of life doula.

Robyn Watson (Guest Choreographer), a Philadelphia native, began dancing at the age of five, training at La-Cher-Tari Dance Studio and later at Wissahickon Dance Academy. At the age of ten, Robyn was asked to join the Philadelphia based Tap Team Two and Company where she served as member and choreographer until 2002. In 2005, Dance Spirit Magazine listed Robyn as one of the “20 Hot Tappers, 20 and Under.” In 2016, Robyn served as the tap instructor for the Broadway sensation Shuffle Along. She has collaborated and performed with singer/musician Rhiannon Giddens, in addition to working, studying, and performing under the direction of tap dancer Savion Glover for eight years. Robyn has also performed with noted artists in the discipline including, Dianne Walker, Germaine Ingram, and the legendary Mabel Lee. Robyn received her B.A. in Theater from Temple University and is has been a resident artist at the Painted Bride Art Center.

In addition to being a professional dancer, Robyn Watson is a theatre and dance educator and costume designer, designing for several high schools and production companies in the Philadelphia region. She currently serves as a professor of dance at Muhlenberg College.

THANK YOU TO OUR SUPPORTERS SUSTAINERS ($2,500+ and up) Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency Steve Richter & Debi Echevarría

ADVOCATES ($1,000-$2,499) The Clovis Family Office of Arts, Culture, & Creative Economy Mary Reinhart Anonymous Donor

SUPPORTERS ($500-$999) Chris Blowitski IAT Insurance Group, Inc. Drs. Barry & Debby Lurie Joseph Lurie & Kathy Gosliner Aliza Ross

PARTNERS ($100-$499) Tracy Bonetti Elaine Brenner Katie Budris & Chris Bryan James & Tara Chapman Charities Aid Foundation America Rebecca Craik Tamera Dallam & Bill Randolph Scott & Pamela Dimeler Robert Dever Joan Duckenfeld Alan Forstater Sarah Flynn Bailey Gaffney Susan Klein & Stuart Pittel John Krzeminski Bob & Debbie Oliveti Karen Mastin Kathleen McGrann Lisa Miller & Ron Sarachan Lily Montalbano

Laurie Nelson Martin Nelson Bob & Debbie Oliveti Mary Pachuta Laura & Brian Penhale Kat Echevarría Richter & Mike Montalbano Melanie & Cody Richter Rowan University RU Hoofers Club Katherine Shupe Amy C. Smith Michael & Rebecca Smith

ENTHUSIAST ($50-$99) Mary Abraham Elizabeth Beatty Britney Kennedy Bobrow Carol Broadbent Chris & Jan Budris Tracey Cundiff Marie Dodds Caroll Drazen & Daryl Boudreaux Joanne Gotto Elizabeth Knighton Deborah Kramer Martha Kubik Karen Mastin Frances McElroy Heather McEntee Debra McMullen Chandra Moss-Thorne Eric Thompson & Sarah Vogan

FRIENDS ($1-49) Carol Barnes Rebecca Bohley Mia Buckley Marissa Camper Kelly Cury Richard DeConca Quinn Drew Megan Flynn Manda Frederick Carrie Gorn

Lindsay Gottwald Jennifer Hankinson Tina Leddy Lisa Lentini-Pombrio Katie Moore Network for Good Tracy Parr Jennifer Paul Amanda Rennie Urlisses Rodriguez Alicia Rosati Georgia Salvaryn Lisa Semeraro Julia Snoke Amy Thievon Brent White

VOLUNTEERS Carol Barnes Kim Billet Rebecca Bohley Chris Bryan Molly Layden Mike Montalbano Melissa Morse Laura Penhale Kristi Stinson

IN-KIND SUPPORTERS Capezio Delaware River Waterfront Corp.

Traveling Tutus, LLC

*Supporter list as of 5/1/2023

The Lady Hoofers Tap Ensemble would like to thank our inaugural Board of Directors for all of their hard work, especially Barry Lurie, Mike Montalbano, Melanie Redmond Richter, and Aliza Ross. We would also like to welcome our new Board members, Carol Barnes, Meg Sarachan, and Amy C. Smith. If you have a passion for the performing arts and are interested in serving on our Board, please email Kat@ladyhoofers.org to begin a conversation.

Inaugural Board of Directors pictured at The Lady Hoofers 10th Anniversary Gala, May 7, 2022 at Pen Ryn Estate. Left to right: Aliza Ross, Tamera Dallam, Barry Lurie, Katie Budris, Kat Echevarría Richter, Mike Montalbano, Melanie Redmond Richter.

Upcoming Events National Tap Dance Day Jam Cherry Street Pier Friday, May 26th, 6:30pm The Arts on Center Stage Philadelphia City Hall Thursday, June 14th, 6:00pm Parkway Presents Series The Oval Friday, July 21 at 6:30pm

Youth Ensemble Auditions Saturday, June 17th at 1:00pm (ages 9-12) or 2:30pm (ages 13-18) First Company Auditions Saturday, June 17 at 4:00pm

Save the Date for

THE TAPCRACKER

Saturday, December 9 & Sunday, December 10 at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre

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