Audiences know to have their tickets in hand when attending a show, but at the Uptown Rhythm Dance Festival, dancing shoes are welcome too. The weeklong event, a collaboration between Works & Process at the Guggenheim and the 92nd Street Y, New York, begins on April 21 with a Lindy Hop lesson and dance party in the Guggenheim rotunda in New York City.
“We’re trying to remind the community that, yes, dance is performance, but it’s also embodied and participatory,” says Duke Dang, executive director of Works & Process. “If audience members embody it, they’re going to understand it better, appreciate it more, and hopefully invest in it.”
There are opportunities for audiences to participate and spectate alike at 92NY, which takes over festival programming April 22–26. Multiple shared bills, as well as a 25th-anniversary performance with Max Pollak’s RumbaTap, will showcase different perspectives on rhythm-based dancing, curated by Alison Manning, co-executive director of Harkness Dance Center at 92NY, and Caleb Teicher. One evening, presenting perspectives on the African American experience through the lens of tap dance and street dance, includes artists such as Harlem hip-hop legend Chrybaby Cozie and tap sensation Derick K. Grant. Another show will invite LaTasha Barnes and Soles of Duende to explore the intersections of Lindy Hop, flamenco, tap, and kathak. In addition to nightly performances, 92NY will host workshops with select artists, including Grant and Pollak.
“Rhythmic forms of dance don’t have enough platforms in the concert-dance world,” says Manning. “But I’ve found that audiences who may struggle to connect with modern or contemporary dance concepts are excited to connect with the music, rhythm, and showmanship of tap, hip hop, or Irish step. It’s really important to talk about how these dance forms differ, but also to present them in contextualized ways so we can also talk about how they bring everybody together.”
“We deliberately didn’t call this a tap festival or percussive-dance festival,” adds Dang. “It’s about opening up a conversation as to what rhythm dance is.”
A closing performance by trailblazing tap choreographer and soloist Brenda Bufalino on April 27, presented by Works & Process in the Guggenheim theater, will bookend the festival. The founder of the American Tap Dance Orchestra, Bufalino will share footage of The White Buffalo Suite, a piece she created for the ensemble in 1990, and dance alongside a multigenerational cast of musicians and hoofers.
“When we talk about the importance of valuing cultural heritage and the elders who are the carriers of history and technique, she is a titan in the field,” says Manning.
The festival promises the beginning of new collaborations not just between dance forms, but also between landmark Upper East Side cultural institutions.
“We hope these offerings will continue a conversation year after year about what, collectively, as neighbors we can do when we work together,” Dang says.
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