45th & 8th

2022

““Tap dancers are famously known for getting down, but this crew demonstrates a talent for taking off, letting us see that under the right conditions, tap can fly...The dancers float; the musicians lead, follow, and lift them; and the rapt audience continues screaming its approval as the curtain falls.””

— Elizabeth Zimmer, The Village Voice

45th & 8th (2022) makes its debut featuring the original compositions of “breathtaking vocalist” Aaron Marcellus (The New York Times). Join this company of singular artists for this new program culminating in a musical and emotional journey that only Marcellus’s soul-stirring music and live performance could provide!

program details:

Run time: 35 minutes, no intermission
6 dancers, 4 musicians
Choreography: Michelle Dorrance in collaboration with Elizabeth Burke, Luke Hickey, Claudia Rahardjanoto, Leonardo Sandoval, Byron Tittle, and featuring improvisation by the dancers
Lighting Design: Kathy Kaufmann
Original Music: Aaron Marcellus in collaboration with Gregory Richardson, Matt Parker, and Kyle Everett
Costume Design: Dede Ayite

““In rehearsal, Dorrance had listened in awe as Marcellus improvised some of his vocal loops, layering harmony atop harmony before trampolining into musical acrobatics. But her deeper response came in what she had choreographed to what he had composed, in the tiny corrections she was giving the dancers to match it more closely.””

— Brian Seibert, New York Times

Program Note

I moved from North Carolina to New York City 25 years ago this past Fall. The work you will see and hear is a direct reflection of the impact these New York artists have had on my life.

Music has been the most inspiring thing in my life outside of my family, tap family, friends, and teachers. When I first moved to New York, I spent literally all of my money and almost all of my free time seeing live music. My mom likes to remind me that when I was two years old, I memorized an entire album of Christmas songs and she recorded me on a cassette tape and sent it to her cousins in Texas. This helps me understand how, despite my failure as a student of ballet, tap dance (because it is a musical form) came so naturally to me. Like many others before me, I moved to this city to pursue something that was equal parts my passion and my identity. And I never could have imagined the way this art form and this city would transform me - and I feel the same way about the relationships that have formed because of them. What moves me so deeply in my favorite tap dancers is feeling pure emotional energy moving through a body to make music. They inspire me, heal me, push me, thrill me, remind me why we’re alive. Thank you all for making me a better artist and human being.

- Michelle Dorrance

45th & 8th

2022

program details:

Program Note

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