PROJECTS
I advance the scope of American tap dance and jazz music traditions through my live improvisations, my fresh approaches to composition and arrangement in my concert work, and community tap projects that bring people of all ages together.
Current
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Jazz stories weave together tap dance, original music and written text to tell a narrative tale. The subject matter can range from musicians to periods of jazz history to abstract themes, told through jazz music. The stories can be factual, fictional, wildly imaginary, boldly futuristic or a mix of all these things.What I aim to do with my jazz stories is not make them straight biographies and instead enrich relevant themes with my own voice. This work of telling other people’s stories inevitably reveals facets of my own journey in dance and music. I start researching, and the stuff I find is just a portal into my own experiences; perhaps that is why I am drawn to them, or why they are drawn to me.
Jazz Story 1 (2021): Tyner and Timmons (TNT)
Jazz Story 2 (2022): Trouble the Water
Jazz Story 3 (2023): Terry Pollard: A Jazz Epistolary
Jazz Story 4 (2024): Beryl Booker
Jazz Story 5 (2026): Dottie Smith
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Item desTaking as inspiration Terri Lyne Carrington's movement "JAZZ WITHOUT PATRIARCHY," which centers the work of woman and nonbinary musicians to generate discourse around the ways jazz culture can be transformed to reflect true gender justice, "Jazz on a Women's Day" is an initiative that centers Philly women-identifying musicians and presents them on visible stages and accessible spaces throughout the city. Creative Philadelphia supported an April 2025 concert at Athletic Recreation Center which featured seven women in jazz at Athletic Recreation Center in North Philadelphia.
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Past
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2013 - Dorothy Wasserman & Jane Goldberg
2015 - Heather Cornell
2016 - Max Pollak
2017 - Ray Hesselink
2016-2020 National Tap Dance Day Celebrations
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I ran a dance studio in Brewerytown for ten years! From 2014-2024, Sound Space Performing Arts was the only urban dance conservatory of its kind in Philadelphia, with a principal focus on preserving and advancing percussive dance. It housed a children's program, an adult program, an artist residency program, and hosted performances, jams, master classes, community events and sliding-scale arts offerings in 19121. It started at a 600 foot warehouse space at 1525 North Bailey Street, then moved to 2511 West Girard Avenue and its last location was 1501 North 31st Street.
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