2016 Soul to Sole Faculty
Tony
Waag
Tony Waag (Producer/Artistic/Executive Director/Teacher) founded the American Tap Dance Foundation (formerly known as the American Tap Dance Orchestra) in 1986, along with Brenda Bufalino and the late Charles "Honi" Coles. From 1989-1995, he co-created and operated, with Ms. Bufalino, Woodpeckers Tap Dance Center which became a model for numerous tap organizations and tap studios worldwide creating, producing, and presenting various educational programs for adults and children year-round, as well as annual winter tap intensives with master classes, courses and workshops taught by leading International artists and master tap dancers. I n 2001, he renamed the organization the American Tap Dance Foundation and created Tap City, the annual New York City Tap Festival with premiere performances of all styles of tap by artists from around the world, as well as an extensive training program for adults, teens and children, city wide events, tap jams, student showcases, panel discussions, lectures and film screenings. As a performer and choreographer, he has been featured in hundreds of concert, film and television productions including appearances at the legendary Apollo Theater, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the United Nations, the Atlanta Arts Festival, the Utah Arts Festival, the Colorado Dance Festival, the Lincoln Center "Out-of-Doors" Festival, the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon, PBS’s "Great Performances, a national Seagram's commercial, and in a French car commercial for Renault in Paris. I nternational appearances include USIA tours of Turkey, Poland, Cyprus, Latvia and Estonia, and recent American ambassador tours of Armenia and Romania with his production of Tap City on Tour. He has also taught and performed in Bermuda, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Italy, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, and Spain. Mr. Waag has received numerous grants towards the presentation and preservation of tap dance as a unique American art form. In 2002, he created the first International Tap Dance Hall of Fame honoring the contributions of legendary tap dancers by preserving their legacies for future generations to enjoy. He also created the annual Tap Preservation and Hoofer Awards, the Gregory Hines Youth Scholarship Fund, and the Gregory Hines Collection of American Tap Dance Archives which are now housed at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. I n 2009, he created and staged the touring production of “Thank You Gregory”, a tribute to the Legends of Tap Dance which can now be seen in theaters across the country. I n January of 2010, he opened the American Tap Dance Center in New York City where he currently directs on-going education and training programs for tappers of all ages and levels.
Nicole
Hockenberry
Nicole B. Hockenberry, a PA native, has been tap dancing professionally for over 20 years. Nicole became a performing member of A&G Dance in 1991, under the Artistic Direction of Germaine Salsberg and Manhattan Tap in 1992, under the Artistic Direction of Heather Cornell. As the founder and director of T.A.P. (1995-2006), Nicole had been asked to teach and perform with the New York Foundation for the Arts, the St. Louis Tap Festival, Soul to Sole (Austin, TX), Columbus Taps, Third Coast Rhythm Project (San Antonio, TX), Southeastern Tap Explosion (Atlanta, GA), Everything on Tap! (Dallas, TX), Traditions in Tap (New York City), Tap Jam (Albuquerque, NM), The Chicago Tap Festival and Tap City: The New York Tap Festival. Nicole’s choreography has been commissioned by tap companies throughout the country, including RPM (San Antonio, TX), Tap Ties (Allentown, PA) and In Motion (Chester, NJ). Nicole joined Germaine Ingram, tap partner to La Vaughn Robinson, for performances in the Philadelphia DanceBoom! Series in 2005, held at the famous WILMA Theatre in Philadelphia, PA. Nicole was a founding member of the women's tap trio, The Shelley Oliver Tap Dancers, under the Artistic Direction of Shelley Oliver and the Musical Direction of David Leonhardt from 1997 – 2002. Nicole is a featured speaker and performer on behalf of Dr. James ‘Buster’ Brown, in the Doctors of Dance Documentary filmed in February 2002, at Oklahoma City University, Oklahoma. Nicole spent twelve years as an adjunct professor of Dance at Cedar Crest College (Allentown, PA) and three years a Master Lecturer at the University of the Arts (Philadelphia, PA), teaching tap courses involving Musical Structure, Tap History and Improvisation as well as directing both the Cedar Crest and UArts Tap Ensembles. Currently, Nicole is a part-time Lecturer of Tap in the Dance Department of Muhlenberg College (Allentown, PA). In 2013, TAP - Teach All People was recreated by Nicole and her husband Mark. TAP produces a Fall TAP Workshop & a summer event, TAP Fest. TAP’s events have included such world renown tap artists as Nicole Hockenberry, Dianne Walker, Jimmy Tate, Lisa Hopkins, Martin Tre Dumas, Lisa La Touche and Karissa Royster. Nicole, along with her husband Mark and children Julia and Alan, make their home in Eastern Pennsylvania and are also the proud owners of Crafty Nicole, (www.craftynicole.com), an online custom designed, clay charm & pendant business.
Anthony
Morigerato
Anthony Morigerato is the founder and director of Operation: Tap, an online forum that isdedicated to immersing tap dancing into the public’s consciousness. Anthony is also the Executive Producer of AM Dance Productions which has produced live theatrical performances
in NYC since 2006. As a performer Anthony was a soloist and member of Michael Minery’s Tapaholics (2002-2012), the lead tap dancer and choreographer for the musical group Matt and Anthony (2009-2012), and a soloist and associate choreographer for Stacey Tookey’s Still Motion (2012-Present). Anthony has appeared as a choreographer and or a performer on several television shows including America’s Got Talent, The Arsenio Hall Show, So You Think
You Can Dance, and the Tony Danza Show. Anthony holds the world record for “most tap sounds in one minute” having made 1,163 sounds. Anthony is an accomplished dancer in all disciplines having trained at Marymount Manhattan College where he performed the works of Robert Battle, Elizabeth Higgins, Jiri Kylian, David Parsons, Katie Langan and William Soleu. He has served as an adjudicator and master teachers for dance organizations, competitions, theater schools, and dance studios throughout the nation since 1999, having students go on to perform in all mediums of the performance industry. He is currently touring the country with NUVO Dance Convention, The Dance Awards, The Dance Teacher Summit, SLIDE, and Dancerpalooza.
Ayodele
Casel
Ayodele Casel Is a native New Yorker and has worked professionally as an actor and tap dancer over the past 17 years. She began her training at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and is a graduate of The William Esper Studio in NYC. Hailed by Gregory Hines as “one of the top young tap dancers in the world today.”. Her work as a choreographer earned her commissions from Aaron Davis Hall/Harlem Stage and the Apollo's Salon Series, where she presented "Diary of a Tap Dancer". She was selected by acclaimed composer Rob Kapilow to collaborate on a Tap dance concerto which premiered at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Ayodele & Sarah Savelli co- choreographed "Tap Into Peace", a show with the music of Stevie Wonder as its inspiration and soundtrack. The show was presented at NY City Center's Fall for Dance and Playhouse Square. Television and film credits include “Third Watch”, “Law and Order”, “Savion Glover’s Nu York”, “The Jamie Foxx Show” and “Bojangles.” In 2006 she originated the role of "The Doll" in "Imagine Tap!" She has performed at The White House, Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, Madison Square Garden and Off- Broadway in Savion Glover’s ‘Downtown: Live Communication.’ She also co-choreographed and was featured on PBS’ “Rodgers and Hart Story: Thou Swell, Thou Witty”. She has been creating and presenting original works since 1999 in venues that include The Apollo, New York’s City Center, Aaron Davis Hall/The Gatehouse, The Lisner Auditorium, Lincoln Center "Out of Doors", Symphony Space, Joyce SoHo, Dance Theater Workshop, The Triad Theater and Joe's Pub at The Public Theater. Recently, Ayodele can be seen performing in Savion Glover’s STePz and is on faculty with LA Dance Magic. She has appeared on the cover of Dance Spirit, American Theater Magazine, & The Village Voice. She has performed with great tap dancers and companies including Gregory Hines, Jazz Tap Ensemble, American Tap Dance Orchestra and Savion Glover N.Y.O.T.s. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally and she strives to make Tap dancing a relevant presence in the arts.
Jeremy
Arnold
Rhythm Is A Terrible Thing to Waste
Jeremy began his training at the Betsy Daily School of Performing Arts in suburban Philadelphia. In high school Jeremy started commuting to New York City weekly as a member of the Tap City Youth Ensemble, directed by the American Tap Dance Foundation. He received his B.A. cum laude, from Muhlenberg College in 2012 where he double majored in Dance and Media and Communications. He was the 2012 recipient of the Dorothy and Dexter Baker Foundation Award in Dance. He is a graduate of the Tap certification program at Jacobs pillow under the direction of Michelle Dorrance. Jeremy is a former member of the nationally touring Shelley Oliver Tap Dancers. After graduating, Jeremy moved to New York City where he danced with Chloe Arnold’s Apt. 33. In 2013 Jeremy started working with Charles O Anderson’s Dance Theater X and had the opportunity to perform Restless Natives at New York Live Arts, Live Ideas festival. In September of 2014 Jeremy moved to Austin, Texas to join Tapestry Dance Company, this will be his second season with the company! He is honored and excited to join the faculty of the University of Texas Dance Department, as an adjunct professor of tap dance. Jeremy has served on the faculty of Tap Ties, Dance Olympus/Dance America, the Soul2Sole festival, International Dance Challenge, Dance Masters of America and the Cecchetti Council of America.
Acia
Gray
Acia Gray is Co-Founder / Producing Artistic Director Tapestry Dance Company. As soloist, choreographer and master teacher, Ms. Gray has toured extensively across the U.S. and abroad and in 1989 co-founded Tapestry Dance Company in Austin, TX with Deirdre Strand and currently serves as Producing Artistic Director & Artistic Director of The Soul to Sole Tap Festival. A graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts/NYC, Ms. Gray has shared the stage with Lon Chaney, Chuck Green, Steve Condos, Brenda Bufalino, Donald O’Connor, Fayard Nicholas, Buster Brown, Savion Glover, Gregory Hines, Jimmy Slyde, Sarah Petronio, Dianne Walker and many others in such productions as The Great Tap Reunion, Tap Do/Wop, Just Friends, Masters of Tap, Tap City, Chicago on Tap and Women in Tap. She was chosen to work with legend Charles ‘Honi’ Coles in America’s first creative residency for tap at The Colorado Dance Festival and again with Jimmy Slyde and was featured in the documentary "A Class Act: The Magic of Honi Coles". She was a founding member and Managing Director of the touring company Austin on Tap, served on the Steering Committee of The International Tap Association and was a featured soloist in the Dance Magazine Calendar. She has also danced, choreographed and taught for Columbia College, The Univerisity of Texas, The Colorado Dance Festival, International Summer School/Cyprus, Dance Masters of America, TASIS/London, Tanzsommer/Austria, The St. Louis Tap Festival, The Chicago Human Rhythm Project, The NYC Tap Festival, Le Festival De Danse Encore and many others. Her book The Souls of Your Feet – A Tap Dance Guide for Rhythm Explorers has been translated in the Czech Republic and China and has been an Amazon.com Bestseller. She toured her work The Souls of Our Feet – A Celebration of American Tap Dance through the National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpieces thoughout the US and China. Her numerous awards include the “Hoofer Award” by The New York City Tap Festival and a premiere member of the Austin Arts Fall of Fame. She has received numerous "Best Of" awards by the Critics Table in Austn and her work "The Souls of Our Feet - A Celebration of American Tap Dance" was chosen as an NEA American Masterpiece production and toured throughout the US, Canada and China. Currently she can be seen in the tap documentary "Tap or Die". Ms. Gray served as the President of the International Tap Association from 2008-2014 and is currently the organization's Director.
Nicholas
Young
Nicholas Young is a New York City-based dancer, musician, and choreographer, most recently a cast member of the off-Broadway sensation STOMP. Nicholas performed the lead role for both the touring and New York companies, acted as rehearsal director for the American tour, and is grateful to have spent more than nine years total as an integral part of the show. Nicholas began his professional career at the age of sixteen as a part of the innovative ultiform Tapestry Dance Company of Austin, TX. Under the direction of founders Acia Gray and Deirdre Strand, he eventually moved to the positions of Principal Dancer and Resident Choreographer. While in Austin he was awarded "Best Male Dancer" in 2001 and "Best Choreography" in 2003 by the Austin Critics Council. Since moving to New York, Nicholas has performed with Manhattan Tap, Rumba Tap, Hoofing to Hitting with Jared Grimes,"Jazz in Motion" with Sarah and Leela Petronio in Paris, and most recently, with Michelle Dorrance's company, Dorrance Dance, in her critically acclaimed work, "Sound Space." Brian Seibert of the New York Times stated: "...But the height of virtuosity came in a late body-percussion solo by Nicholas Young. Snapping, clapping, stomping and clicking his tongue, Mr. Young played the church with his body, a one-man band juggling two or three rhythms at once, developing a sophisticated composition within Ms. Dorrance's." Mr. Young has been a featured percussionist with Cyro Baptista's fusion Brazilian ensemble Beat The Donkey and drummer for Indi-pop star Darwin Deez, touring throughout North and South America, Europe, and Japan. His original compositions and productions were included in the newly released tap dance documentary "Tap or Die," directed by Jackie Pare'. Nicholas has been a Master Teacher for festivals world-wide teaching tap and body percussion for Chicago Human Rhythm Project, Soul to Sole, New York's Tap City, Stockholm Tap Festival, and many others.
He recently premiered his New York-based dance company SoundMovement in which Trina Mannino for Dance Enthusiast wrote "The most ground-breaking use of rhythm was found in SoundMovement Dance Company's environments." Nicholas is currently working on a collaboration with Bessie Award winner Michelle Dorrance for the Jacobs Pillow 2014 season.
Lane
Alexander
Lane Alexander, Chicago Human Rhythm Project’s co-founder and artistic director, has been a pioneer in the tap dance community and helped to build the first presenting institution in the United States dedicated to American tap and contemporary percussive arts. He has performed Morton Gould’s Tap Dance Concerto at Carnegie Hall with the New York Pops/Skitch Henderson; the Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic/Rachel Worby; Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall with the Little Orchestra Society/David Allen Miller; the Pritzker Pavilion with the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra/ Christopher Bell; the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra/David Robertson et al. He co-directed the Emmy nominated PBS/ITVS documentary, JUBA! Masters of Tap and Percussive Dance, directed the first full-length tap concert in the Eisenhower Theater at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and helped to found the new American Rhythm Center in Chicago’s historic Fine Arts Building. Mr. Alexander directs the tap/percussive dance ensemble, BAM!, which represented the United States at the 5th Beijing Contemporary Dance Festival, the Gala de Estrellas Internacionales de Danza in Caracas and toured for the Jazz at Lincoln Center’s regional jazz program. He has received an NEA American Masterpieces grant through the Illinois Arts Council, the Ruth Page Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Field, the Chicago Dance and Music Alliance for Outstanding Solo Performance, two IAC Choreography Fellowships, and a Chicago Dancemakers Forum Award. Mr. Alexander currently serves as a faculty member and senior advisor to the Beijing Contemporary Music Academy as well as the American Rhythm Center and has served on the faculties of the Lou Conte Dance Studio, Northwestern University, Columbia College and UNLV. Mr. Alexander currently serves on the boards of the International Tap Association and Arts and Business Council of Chicago as well as serving on Mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel’s policy team for Arts and Culture.
Heather Cornell
Heather Cornell creates visual music ensembles where she functions as the percussionist. “Making Music Dance”, (flamenco, tap and world music), released their first CD in the fall of 2015. “Finding Synesthesia”, commissioned by Southbank Center, was the first dance ever at the London Jazz Festival, England. TapMotif in Lefkada, Greece was her laboratory for 8 seasons, where she trained free-thinking “bilingual” artists in music and dance. “CanTap”, features Canada’s finest tap dancers and musicians for evenings of new approaches to improvisation. As artistic director for Manhattan Tap, one of the busiest music/dance companies in the world in the 80’s and 90’s, she was known as a mover and shaker of the tap dance renaissance. She is co-director of “Walk to the Beat”, a world music and percussive dance improvisational festival, recently awarded a national commission from New Music USA. As a soloist, she recently performed for a sold out 1,200 seat Teatro Municipal Jorge Eliecer Gaitan in Bogota, Colombia, performing an improvised evening with local musicians. Heather trained directly with the first generation tap masters, and has taught and inspired three generations of tap dancers, musicians and actors internationally. She was called “the Oscar Peterson of hoofing” (Globe and Mail, Toronto) and was the only tap dancer mentored by the infamous bassist, Ray Brown. She is a pioneer of concert tap and, beginning in the mid 80’s, has led the scene in working with world music. She choreographed “The Play What I Wrote” for Broadway and “Three Penny Opera” for Atalaya in Sevilla, Spain. TV, radio and film credits: “Thinking on Their Feet, Women of the Tap Renaissance” (Jenai Cutcher), “Gotta Move, Women in Tap” (Lynn Daly), ”“KQED special w. Honi Coles and the Jazz Tap Ensemble; “Gregory Hines’ Tap Dance in America” for PBS; featured MT special on “Sounds Impressive”; WYNC’s live radio show, “Around New York” for 5 years. Awards: Hoofer’s Award (Tap City, 2015), Juba! Award (CHRP, 2012), FloBert Award (NYC Tap Day, 2011), Tapestry Award (Boston, 2010) and Legends of Tap (Vancouver, 2008). She teaches at Manhattanville College and received the “Distinguished Artist” award from Bergen Community College (Bergen, NY 2014).
Siobhan
Cook
Siobhan Cook began her training in Tapestry’s multi–form youth training academy in ballet, rhythm tap, jazz and modern. During high school she auditioned for Visions and Rhythm, Tapestry’s pre–professional youth company under the direction of Tasha Lawson. While attending St. Stephen’s Episcopal School, she was a member of Chrysalis Dance Company under the direction of Deirdre Strand, her mother. After graduating high school, Siobhan received a scholarship to Muhlenberg College Dance Department. She realized that rhythm tap was her true passion so she then returned to Austin and was chosen as an apprentice with the professional company. Since then, she has been a full time professional dancer under the artistic direction of her mentor Acia Gray. Siobhan has studied with Dianne Walker, Nicholas Young, Michelle Dorrance, Brenda Bufalino, Dormeshia Sumbry–Edwards, Dr. Fayard Nicholas, Dr. Arthur Duncan and Dr. Jeni Legon. Siobhan has appeared in premiere works by TDC such as Ears Wide Open, April Fools, and Time. She was also a part of the NEA funded Souls of Our Feet 2: A Celebration of American Tap that toured the United States, Canada and China. She was also the leading female in Matt Shield’s Chronological Life Story of a Few Tap Dancers premiering at Vancouver International Tap Festival. She was Arthur Duncan’s demonstrator at the Montreal Tap Dance Festival in 2013, on faculty in 2014 along with the Toronto Tap Initiative. Siobhan is a solo tap artist now residing in NYC.
