Manhattan Tap

Manhattan Tap, "one of New York's leading tap ensembles" NY Times, was founded in 1986, and is a major force not only in NYC but also in the international tap community. The company is a collection of individual dancers, all strong soloists, who fuse into an electrifying ensemble that uniquely blends tap dance, music, choreography and improvisation. Since 1991 Artistic Director Heather Cornell has been the sole choreogrhapher creating works in a style that has been dubbed "visual music" by Dance Magazine.

"Manhattan Tap concentrates on what counts - the sound of tap dancing... excitingly they are always in dialogue with their own musicians... " NY Times.

And what musicians they are! With a home base like Manhattan, the company has worked with some of the greatest jazz and world musicians. A long-standing collaborative relationship between Ms. Cornell and renowned bassist Ray Brown peaked with the world premiere of The Tap Suite, a twenty-minute work with original music by Ray Brown. The Tap Suite was performed with the Ray Brown Trio at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in 1997 for Manhattan Tap's tenth anniversary season, Tap Meets Brown in Manhattan. In 1992 Manhattan Tap was awarded a Meet The Composers' National Composer/Choreographer Grant which funded the first collaboration between Ms. Cornell and Ray Brown and resulted in Gumbo Hump.

In June 1998, Ms. Cornell collaborated with body percussionist and world musician Keith Terry and Crosspulse, on Excursion Fare, a new work that was again funded by a Meet the Composer grant and premiered at New York City's Joyce Theater. Also that year, the company completed an extensive residency in Connecticut that included a collaboration between Ms. Cornell and percussionist Leon Parker.

"(Heather Cornell, in Excursion Fare) bridges the gap between old and new style tap dancing, with dancing as intimately involved with the music as any tap solost and instrumentalist." Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times, New York

A NYSCA Residency grant in conjunction with the NEA and the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, "Live Music and Dance" program enabled a collaboration between Ms. Cornell and musician Bob Telson, featuring the hot new Argentinean star, accordinist Chango Spasiuk. In Oct. 2000, the new show Danzas Para Soné was premiered at the Reg Lena Civic Center in Jamestown, NY.

Manhattan Tap has commissioned numerous works from leading tap dancers such as Steve Condos, "Cookie" Cook, James "Buster" Brown, Diane Walker, Germaine Ingram and Fred Strickler; collaborated with such greats as Eddie Brown and Harriet Brown; and has shared the stage with these artists and more.

Under the direction of Ms. Cornell, Manhattan Tap has toured the US, Europe, China, the Caribbean and Canada and has been featured on television and live radio. The versatility of the company is evidenced in the list of varied venues in which it has performed in NYC: Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, the Apollo Theater, the Joyce Theatre, the Village Gate jazz club, the Town Hall, Merkin Concert Hall, the Danny Kaye Playhouse, and the Winter Garden. A selection of on-tour highlights includes the first International Arts Festival in China, the Riverside Dance Festival in London, England, the Winnipeg Jazz Festival in Edmonton, Canada, the Ambassador Theater in Los Angeles, The Aspen Dance Festival in Colorado, the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts in Anchorage, a Tribute to Steve Condos in Lyon, France, and "Hollywood Jazz" in Valencia, Spain. Manhattan Tap has been featured on PBS' Tap Dance in America, the Canadian jazz television show Sounds Impressive, and annually from 1992-97 on WNYC's Around New York.

Manhattan Tap has been a major force in New York and internationally since its founding. Under the direction of Ms. Cornell, they continue to create a new style of concert tap that has never lost the art of improvisation or the individual strengths of its members.