PREMIERE NOTES

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.