THINKING ON THEIR FEET:
WOMEN OF THE TAP RENAISSANCE
THE WOMEN
Brenda Bufalino
Recognized throughout the world as a leading exponent and innovator in the tap world, Bufalino performs, lectures, and teaches master classes throughout the United States and abroad. She has appeared as a guest soloist in such prestigious arenas as Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, The Apollo Theater, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Smithsonian Institute and the Kennedy Center. Bufalino performed in concert with the late Charles "Honi" Coles, touring America, England and France. In 1986, in order to develop her choreographic concepts of tap fugues and counterrhythms, Bufalino created The American Tap Dance Orchestra. The ATDO's concert, stage and film highlights include: PBS Great Performances/Tap Dance in America, A Night of Tap At The Apollo Theater, The International Festival of the Arts in Central Park, and seasons at The Joyce Theater and Dance Theater Workshop. International performances include Bermuda, Germany, Rome, Turkey, Cyprus, and Poland. In 1989, Bufalino created Woodpeckers Tap Dance Center, producing classes, workshops and performances. She has been awarded numerous National Endowment Fellowships and is a NYFA Fellow. Bufalino has been honored with the Flobert and Tapestry Awards for her contributions to the field of tap dance.
Heather Cornell
Heather Cornell is known for her deeply musical approach to the art form of tap. Her recent endeavors have been creating music ensembles where she functions as the percussionist. Her newest show, “Finding Synesthesia,” with pianist Andy Milne, was commissioned by London’s Southbank Center and premiered at the London Jazz Festival, 2007. Cornell co-created a music/tap summit in Lefkada, Greece, where her concepts of training free thinking “bilingual” artists in music and dance are put into action. Her new performing ensemble, CanTap, brings together Canada’s finest tap dancers. She is artistic director and choreographer for the acclaimed Manhattan Tap, one of the busiest music/dance companies in the world in the 1990’s. Cornell was apprentice to six of America’s tap masters and performed frequently with Buster Brown, Eddie Brown, Harriet Browne, Cookie Cook, Steve Condos, and Chuck Green. Cornell was mentored by the great bassist, Ray Brown. She is one of the pioneers of concert tap and in working with world music and has choreographed for Broadway and international theater works. TV and radio credits: KQED special with Honi Coles; Tap Dance in America; Canadian series Sounds Impressive; WYNC’s Around NY.
Lynn Dally
Lynn Dally is a co-founder of the Jazz Tap Ensemble (1979) and Artistic Director for the past decade. Combining her extensive experience in modern dance with her first love, tap, she created new possibilities for the field through her choreography and performance in Jazz Tap Ensemble. She has appeared often with tap legends Honi Coles, Eddie Brown, the Nicholas Brothers, Steve Condos, Jimmy Slyde, and Gregory Hines. She has received multiple choreographic grants from The National Endowment for the Arts and most recently was awarded the prestigious Irvine Fellowship in Dance 2000 and the Guggenheim Fellowship 2001. Her long list of commissions includes Ruby My Dear for Seattle's Pacific Northwest Ballet, The Moment for ETC/ Chicago Human Rhythm Project, Tribute : A Valentine to Tap Dance in the Movies for the Palm Beach Festival. She has appeared on national television with the Ensemble and in the award winning film Tapdancin! Dally is on the faculty of UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures and teaches and performs internationally. She appeared in the original production of Tap Divas at New York Tap City Festival 2001 and was honored in Tap City’s 2002 Masters & Mentors.
Anita Feldman
Anita Feldman gained an international reputation as a leading innovator of tap dance beginning in 1983, choreographing pieces with new music composers that incorporated electronics and the patented "Tap Dance Instrument," a wood and brass multi-timbre floor. Anita Feldman Tap, a company of musicians and dancers, performed at over 100 venues in the U.S., Japan and Germany, including the Colorado Dance Festival, Dance Theater Workshop, Whitney Museum, American Dance Festival, Village Gate, and Podewil in Berlin. Her work has been supported by numerous grants, including six NEA Fellowships, six NYSCA grants, and two New York Foundation Fellowships. Her book Inside Tap: Technique and Improvisation for Today's Tap Dancer is published by Princeton Books. She is on the dance faculty at Hofstra University where she teaches tap and kinesiology, choreographs contemporary tap works, and is the designer and director of Hofstra’s new Dance Education Program.
Jane Goldberg
Jane Goldberg’s late friend, Gregory Hines, claimed she “single-footedly” pioneered the tap revival of the mid 1970’s, through her advocacy and background in journalism that brought public attention to the art once again. She performed with some of these greats in venues untouched by tapping feet. Her first presenters were Max Gordon of The Village Vanguard, NY's premiere jazz club, The Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia and The Goodman Theatre in Chicago. The American Dance Festival and Jacob's Pillow presented Goldberg's Changing Times Tap, her company in 1978. In 1986 Goldberg went solo with her act, Rhythm & Schmooze. Goldberg also produced an all women's tap show, Sole Sisters, featuring tap's “grandes dames and prima tapperinas.” Goldberg has tapped on the tops of bars to the live music of blue chip artist Larry Rivers, in Paris with the late Steve Lacy, and as a Fulbright Scholar to India twice. She is the author of Shoot Me While I’m Happy, a tap memoir.
Sarah Petronio
Born in India, Sarah Petronio moved to Paris in the ‘70s where she headed the Tap Dance Department of the American Center of Paris and became the dancing partner of the legendary Jimmy Slyde. She has broken ground as a woman in the jazz world, bringing her special style of rhythms and improvisation to festivals and clubs including Jazz Yatra India, Jazz à Juan, New Morning-Paris, Cannes, Ravinia, and Perth Jazz. A master teacher and performer and major force in introducing tap to French audiences, she has appeared at dance festivals around the world. Sarah has received Russia's Tapparade award and New York Tap City's prestigious Hoofer Award. She has been an ardent advocate for tap, appearing on several television and radio programs in France. She has danced for the great Honi Coles in the documentary Honi Coles, a Class Act. Residing in Paris, she performs her "Jazz in Motion" and "Tap Messengers" concerts with Leela Petronio and visiting tap artists.
Linda Sohl-Ellison
Linda Sohl-Ellison, Artistic Director, co-founded Rhapsody In Taps with Toni Tack in 1981. Linda has a BFA from Ohio University and an MA from UCLA. She studied with the great tap masters Foster Johnson, Eddie Brown, Honi Coles and Buster Brown. She collaborated with Gregory Hines, staging and performing in his first choreographic work, Toeing the 3rd and Fifth, made for Rhapsody In Taps in 1990. Recognized for her choreographic innovation in tap, she has been awarded five Choreographers’ Fellowships from the NEA, two Irvine Fellowships in Dance, and a grant from the Irvine Foundation. In 2006 she received a Lester Horton Dance Award for Outstanding Choreography and a Distinguished Alumni Award from OU. Linda is a Professor of Dance at Orange Coast College. She was the founding director of the Southern California Tap Festival from 1993-97, participated in tap festivals and tap film documentaries and has toured throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia, teaching and performing.