Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards (born January 16, 1976, in Englewood, California) is an American tap dancer, choreographer, and instructor who has been called "the mastress of her generation." [1] In 1998, she married fellow dancer Omar Edwards and opened a studio with him in Harlem; they have three children. [2]
Sumbry-Edwards began tap dancing at the age of 3 under the instruction of Paul and Arlene Kennedy at the Universal Dance Theatre. At age 8, she performed at the Tip Tap Festival in Rome. At age 12, she made her Broadway debut in Black and Blue, alongside Gregory Hines, Jimmy Slyde, Buster Brown, and Savion Glover. [3] In 1989, the New York Times described her as part of a young generation who "have the certain something." [4] After graduating from high school, Sumbry-Edwards joined Lynn Dally's Jazz Tap Ensemble as a soloist. [1]
Sumbry-Edwards also appeared on Broadway in the Tony Award-winning Bring In Da'Noise, Bring In Da'Funk as the only female tap dancer, initially appearing dressed as a man. [2] [5] She has toured extensively in the United States and abroad.
As an instructor, Sumbry-Edwards has taught on the International Tap Festival circuit including the New York City Tap Festival, the Los Angeles Tap Festival, the Campinas Tap Festival, for K-Broadway in Tokyo, [3] and at the Broadway Dance Center in New York City. [6] She is currently on faculty in the dance department at Barnard College.
After her experience hearing responses to her role in Bring In Da'Noise, Bring In Da'Funk alongside male dancers, Sumbry-Edwards decided to think about new ways of teaching techniques of rhythm-tap for women, culminating in a Harlem Tap Studio course for Women in Heels described as "countering the downward-driving, piston-driven attack of traditional (male) rhythm-tapping styles with steps that were structured along more circuitous paths of attack." [1]
Sumbry-Edwards was also a featured performer in Broadway's After Midnight for which she also won an Astaire Award for Best Performance. [7]
Sumbry-Edwards won a Bessie in 2012 for Outstanding Performer in Jason Samuels Smith's work "Chasing The Bird" performed at The Joyce Theater. [8] She also was the recipient of a dance fellowship in 1994 as well as the prestigious Princess Grace Statue Award in 2017. [9]
Tap dance is a form of dance which uses the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion; it is often accompanied by music. Tap dancing can also be a cappella, with no musical accompaniment; the sound of the taps is its own music.
Gregory Oliver Hines was an American dancer, actor, choreographer, and singer. He is one of the most celebrated tap dancers of all time. As an actor, he is best known for Wolfen (1981), The Cotton Club (1984), White Nights (1985), Running Scared (1986), The Gregory Hines Show (1997–1998), playing Ben on Will & Grace (1999–2000), and for voicing Big Bill on the Nick Jr. Channel animated children's television program Little Bill (1999–2004).
Savion Glover is an American tap dancer, actor, and choreographer.
The Nicholas Brothers were an entertainment act composed of brothers, Fayard (1914–2006) and Harold (1921–2000), who excelled in a variety of dance techniques, primarily between the 1930s and 1950s. Best known for their unique interpretation of a highly acrobatic technique known as "flash dancing", they were also considered by many to be the greatest tap dancers of their day, if not all time. Their virtuoso performance in the musical number "Jumpin' Jive" featured in the 1943 movie Stormy Weather has been praised as one of the greatest dance routines ever captured on film.
Dianne Walker, also known as Lady Di, is an American tap dancer. Her thirty-year career spans Broadway, television, film, and international dance concerts. Walker is the artistic director of TapDancin, Inc. in Boston, Massachusetts.
James Titus Godbolt, known professionally as Jimmy Slyde and also as the "King of Slides", was an American tap dancer known for his innovative tap style mixed with jazz.
Donald McKayle was an American modern dancer, choreographer, teacher, director and writer best known for creating socially conscious concert works during the 1950s and '60s that focus on expressing the human condition and, more specifically, the black experience in America. He was "among the first black men to break the racial barrier by means of modern dance." His work for the concert stage, especially Games (1951) and Rainbow Round My Shoulder (1959), has been the recipient of widespread acclaim and critical attention. In addition, McKayle was the first black man to both direct and choreograph major Broadway musicals, including the Tony Award-winners Raisin (1973) and Sophisticated Ladies (1981), and he worked extensively in television and film. As a young man he appeared with some of the twentieth century's most important choreographers, including Martha Graham, Anna Sokolow, and Merce Cunningham, and in some of Broadway's landmark productions, including House of Flowers (1958) and West Side Story (1957), where he served for a time as the production's dance captain. A Tony Award and Emmy Award nominee, McKayle held an endowed chair for the last decades of his life in the Dance Department at UC Irvine, where he was the Claire Trevor Professor of Dance. He previously served on the faculties of Connecticut College, Sarah Lawrence College, and Bennington College.
Maurice Robert Hines Jr. was an American actor, director, singer, and choreographer. He was the older brother of dancer Gregory Hines.
Henry LeTang was an American theatre, film, and television choreographer and a dance instructor.
Jason Samuels Smith is an American tap dancer, choreographer, and director.
Chloe Arnold is an American dancer and Emmy-nominated choreographer, actress, director, and producer. She is best known internationally as a tap dancer, and was seen on Season 11 of FOX's So You Think You Can Dance with her company Chloe Arnold's Syncopated Ladies.
The American Tap Dance Foundation is a nonprofit organization whose primary goal is the presentation and teaching of tap dance. Its original stated purpose was to provide an "international home for tap dance, perpetuate tap as a contemporary art form, preserve it through performance and an archival library, provide educational programming, and establish a formal school for tap dance."
Leonard Harper was a producer, stager, and choreographer in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Chita Rivera Awards for Dance and Choreography celebrate outstanding dance and choreography in theatre, both on Broadway and Off-Broadway and in film at an annual ceremony in New York City at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. Now carrying the namesake of two-time Tony-winning dance icon Chita Rivera, The Rivera Awards will be presented under the auspices of American Dance Machine, an organization dedicated to the preservation of great musical-theater choreography.
Michelle Dorrance is an American tap dancer, performer, choreographer, teacher and director. Awarded a MacArthur "Genius Grant", she is the Founder and artistic director of Dorrance Dance. Dorrance is known for her creative ensemble choreography, rhythm tap style and ambitious collaborative projects with fellow tap dance choreographers and musicians. She is currently a 2017 Choreographic Fellow at New York City Center and an Artist in Residence at the American Tap Dance Foundation. Dorrance lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Tap City, the New York City Tap Festival, was launched in 2001 in New York City. Held annually for approximately one week each summer, the festival features tap dancing classes, choreography residencies, panels, screenings, and performances as well as awards ceremonies, concert performances, and Tap it Out, a free, public, outdoor event performed in Times Square by a chorus of dancers. The goal of the Festival is to establish a "higher level of understanding and examination of tap’s storied history and development.”
Ayodele Casel is an American tap dancer and choreographer. Raised in Puerto Rico, she derived inspiration for her tap style from salsa music. While in college, she studied with Baakari Wilder and Charles Goddertz. She became the first, and remains the only, woman to be a member of Savion Glover's Not Your Ordinary Tappers.
Ted Louis Levy is an American tap dancer, singer, choreographer, and director. He is widely celebrated as one of America’s premier tap dance artists.
Harriet "Quicksand" Browne was an American tap dancer, educator and choreographer who was best known for her innovation in sanding. Browne got a job dancing in the chorus but shortly afterwards got pregnant and had a son, which put a temporary stop to her dancing career. After the birth of her son, she resumed dancing as a soloist and as a member of the chorus in clubs around Chicago. During the 1950s, she toured with Cab Calloway's band. After she got a job in the chorus at a club in Greenwich Village, although she continued to tour, she settled in New York City.
{{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)