Manhattan Tap - Available Shows for Booking

PAST AND PRESENT SHOWS

Now in its 19th season, Manhattan Tap has developed a unique style of work that blends choreography and improvisation in live musical performances. The Company has performed in major New York City venues, including the Joyce Theater, Lincoln Center, the Apollo Theater and Town Hall, among others. The Company has toured extensively throughout the US as well as in Europe, Canada and China. Manhattan Tap's commitment is to take one of the few truly American art forms to a higher level of quality and recognition as a serious concert dance form.

Heather Cornell and the Lewis Nash Trio
(Now booking)
Heather Cornell has been called "the Oscar Peterson of hoofing" by Dierdre Kelly of the Globe and Mail, Toronto, Canada. With bassist Ray Brown as her most significant mentor, Heather's dancing belongs with the top players in the music world. She is frequently credited by musicians for opening their eyes to the inherent musicial quality of tap. After creating Manhattan Tap, one of the first tap ensembles to reintroduce the connection between tap soloists and live music, she went on to be a pioneer in introducing tap to world music. Ms. Cornell created tap evenings for Lincoln Center, the Apollo and the Joyce Theater in NYC in collaboration with The Hard Bop Trio, The Ray Brown Trio, Crosspulse, composer Bob Telson and Agentenian accordinist Chago Spasiuk. She has worked for years with musicians of African, Brazilian, Cuban, Columbian and Venezuelan origins. Her new show pairs her with the virtuoso jazz drummer Lewis Nash and his trio and allows her to return to her roots - jazz.

And what a pairing of talents! "Rhythm Is My Business" is the title of Lewis Nash's debut recording as a leader, and rhythm is a booming business as far as he is concerned. He is the drummer of choice for an incredible array of artists - from the masters of the music to the hottest young players of today. He is.. "universally recognized as the great drummer of his generation - resourceful, inventive, subtle and infallibly tasteful. (Village Voice, NYC).

This new show, a culmination of a 15 year musical friendship, is about eloquent musical conversations. You'll hear and see the interplay between Heather's sand dancing and Lewis' brushes, the intimacy of tap and solo bass, and the dreaminess of an out of time duet with tap and vibes. It's a show reconnecting America's own music and dance - jazz and tap. If you want your audiences to leave smiling, you'll want to book this show.

Both Heather and Lewis are credited as top pedagogues in their fields. They are available for residency situations and can hold clinics on a number of aspects of music, tap and the connections to be found.

Heather Cornell in Residence
(Also Available)
Heather Cornell can present performances in collaboration with local musicians and produce an exciting and unique improvisational show. Ms. Cornell's depth of experience is available to provide your organization with custom designed performances ranging from enriching Lecture Demonstrations through exciting full evenings.

Her signature style...musically sophisticated and deliciously languid...indolent and dazzling at the same time." Village Voice, New York.

Jazz Repertory Show
(Special Projects and Tours)
Manhattan Tap's dancers are the best of the new young tappers on the scene today. Together they fuse into an electrifying ensemble that uniquely blends tap dance and music, choreography and improvisation. Artistic Director, Heather Cornell's choreography has been dubbed "visual music" by Dance Magazine. The results can be heard as well as seen. The company has created a number of signature pieces now included in this show, including Chair-O-Kee, Gumbo Hump and The Tap Suite (composed with jazz bassist Ray Brown), Tapaholic, Scrapple and Blues for Buster. This show is performed with 4-6 dancers and three musicians-Manhattan Tap's own jazz trio.

Together, Manhattan Tap and the trio create a unique chemistry between dancers and musicians. Pianist Keith Saunders, bassist Lee Hudson, and drummer Eddie Ornowski, add melody to the vibe. All the music in the jazz repertory show has been composed expressly for the company, or is an original arrangement by Keith Saunders. Keith and Heather Cornell have collaborated for more than ten years, creating a relationship between the dancers and musicians unlike that of any other tap company. Anna Kisselgoff of the New York Times wrote: "...Manhattan Tap concentrates on what counts-the sound of tap dancing...excitingly they are always in dialogue with their own musicians."

The HardBop Trio has been the musical complement of Manhattan Tap's tap percussion for the company's jazz repertory show for more than ten years. The band has recorded 5 CDs for the TCB label and is a mainstay on the New York jazz scene, when not touring with Manhattan Tap. They have performed regularly at Visiones, Birdland, The Squire, Chelsea Commons and Steinway Hall. Keith Saunders, Manhattan Tap's music director and also the leader of the HardBop Trio, is in demand as a jazz pianist in NYC and has toured extensively with his own group. He has written and arranged music-recorded by the HBQ-for numerous television spots.

Danzas Para Soné
(Special Projects and Tours)
Manhattan Tap's newest show Danzas para Soné, is an exciting blend of Argentinean, Brazilian and classic R&B. This collaboration between Heather Cornell and noted film composer Bob Telson brings together an exciting group of musicians including Chango Spasiuk (accordion)-a hot new star in his country of Argentina. Ms. Cornell called on some original dance styles (tango, malambo) to build a new connection between tap and South & North American rhythms and music. Breaking down the artificial boundaries that separate music and dance, this show presents the art of tap in an entirely new context. At the premiere, the crowd's response proved that tap is as universal a language as music itself.

The new show is performed by a company of six dancers and four to six musicians. The creation of this major new work reinforces Ms. Cornell's vision of incorporating international rhythm and music into tap, and of building collaborations with artists from around the world.

Bob Telson has performed with Phillip Glass, Tito Puente and the Five Blind Boys of Alabama. His popular songs have been in the top 10 national salsa and black music charts, including Dyin' to be Dancin', which he wrote for Lee Breuer's A Prelude to Death in Venice. He was musical director of the National Public Radio series "The Territory of Art". With Donald Fagen he was a co-producer of the Warner Bros. Original-cast recording of The Gospel at Colonus which, together with the CD Songs from the Warrier Ant document his major collaborations with Lee Breuer.

In 1989, Telson received an Oscar nomination for Best Song for "Calling You" from his score for the film Bagdad Cafe. That song, as well as his music from the Twyla Tharp ballet, Sextet, and the song "Barefoot", written with and sung by K.D. Lang, can be found on Telson's Warner Bros. CD, Calling You. His songs have been recorded by Joe Cocker, George Michael, George Benson, Celine Dion, and most recently Brazilian stars Caetano Veloso and Gal Costa. In 1995 Telson composed a score for the Broadway show Chronicle of a Death Foretold, which received a Tony nomination for Best Musical.

"(Cornell's choreography) explores so many genres of music and movement that the result is her own, indefinable idiom. It strikes the ear as a true dance and musical phenomenon. Nothing before has been quite like it. Perhaps nothing to come will either." The Chieftan, Pueblo, Colorado.

Excursion Fare/World Music
(Currently not touring.)
This collaboration between Ms. Cornell and Keith Terry/Crosspulse was made possible by a grant from Meet the Composers' National Composer/Choreographer Grant. Excursion Fare, premiered at the Joyce Theatre in 1998, offered tap in an entirely new context. Unique to this show was the close collaboration with folkloric musicians whose roots range from Venezuela to Columbia, Cuba, Africa, and Indonesia.
Jennifer Dunning of The New York Times said that Ms. Cornell's choreography in this show succeeded in ...bridging the gap between old- and new-style tap, with dancing that is intimate and as intimately involved with the music as any soloist and instrumentalist."

Manhattan Tap with the Ray Brown Trio
Ray Brown (1918-2002). Manhattan Tap Artistic Director Heather Cornell and renowned jazz bassist Ray Brown had a long standing relationship as collaborators. In 1991, Ms. Cornell received a grant from Meet the Composer to collaborate with Ray Brown on the creation of an original work for tap. The result was Gumbo Hump, which quickly became Manhattan Tap's show stopper. This success inspired the two to collaborate again, this time on an extended work funded by the Mary Flaglar Cary Charitable Trust. The Tap Suite was premiered in 1997 with the Ray Brown Trio for the company's tenth anniversary season, Tap Meets Brown in Manhattan at Alice Tully Hall at New York's Lincoln Center. This 30-minute work of hard-hitting funk, unstoppable lindy, and one of the most beautiful ballads ever written, explodes with the richness of Ms. Cornell and Mr. Brown's collaborative spirit.

This program was especially unique as an addition to jazz festivals. Manhattan Tap is sad to lose this show. Ray Brown's reputation, acclaim and popularity made it a special draw for jazz fans around the world.

Ray Brown was Heather Cornell's strongest musical mentor and he will be sorely missed. His enormous artistry and commitment to mentoring and nurturing young artists will never be forgotten. Ms. Cornell was honored to be one of those artists.