• Tim Richards
  Tim was my mentor throughout my professional development project and provided the support and encouragement to help me to the next level in both my understanding of jazz music for tap and my piano playing. Tim was also my tutor for Blues Piano at Goldsmiths College 2009-2010.
• Jeanette Bain at the Association of Dance of the African Diaspora
• Lisa Ullmann Travelling Scholarship Fund
• Michele Drees Trio
  The trio’s great musicality and encouragement are great support and inspiration for jazz and tap dance.

The jazz piano and tap dance journey is just beginning…

Download PDF of the full report (from LUTSF website)

The project outline
The Lisa Ullmann Travelling Scholarship Award enabled me to undertake the international travel element of my Trailblazer Fellowship (Sept 2009- Nov 2010), which was awarded by The Association of Dance of the African Diaspora (ADAD). My Trailblazer Fellowship project involved professional development in my career as a tap dancer. The aim was to develop skills and experience to work more closely with musicians in order to fully integrate tap into a jazz band. As well as ongoing tap training I was also developing my musicianship by training as a musician and had begun working more closely with a jazz trio for tap dance performances prior to the project. Travelling to New York was a key element of research in the relationship between jazz and tap, and training in tap dance.

Dates of travel to New York USA, July 1st – August 6th 2010

Planned activities
• Attend Heather Cornell’s Manhattan Tap New York City intensive, 12th–23rd July 2010
• Research archives at The Lincoln Center: New York Library for the Performing Arts

Additional activities
My previous experience of travelling to New York City enabled me to be prepared for the many opportunities that appear in a short space of time. Below is an outline of tap and jazz related events that were either recommended or I find out about whilst in the city. There were also many other events and social activities related to dance and music that contributed to the purpose of my trip.

• The World of Tap Dance: A two-day celebration, 6th – 7th July 2010 (Conference)
• Tap City: The New York City Tap Festival Awards ceremony, screening, show, 8th-9th July 2010 (Festival)
• Savion Glover’s SoLE PoWER, 8th July 2010 (Tap/Dance theatre)
• Tap Jam at Smalls, 4th & 25th July 2010 (Tap/live jazz show)
• Heather Cornell’s BBQ & jam, 17th July (Tap/live music show and jam)
• Barry Harris Trio at the Village Vanguard (Live jazz show)
• Malika Zarra at Bar 55 (Live jazz show)
• Roxane Butterfly’s tap performance, 31st July 2010 (Tap/live jazz show)
• Cotton Club Swing Dance Night, 2nd August (Live entertainment: tap, big band and social swing dance)
• Lafayette Harris Jr Quartet at Zinc Bar, 4th August 2010 (Live jazz show)
• Choro Ensemble at Zinc Bar, 4th August 2010 (Live jazz show)

How far the purpose of the project was achieved
As far as the trip to New York it matched my expectations and provided the grounding and experience I was aiming for. The two-week tap intensive was challenging but in very supportive environment that helped ensure it was an enjoyable experience. It was particularly grounding to be amongst other professionals and share knowledge and experience of tap and jazz. When I returned to London I was pleased to find musicians relating to me as a musician as well as a dancer since this was one of the purposed of the project.

As indicated by the list of additional activities above, I was able to attend numerous events and jams in New York. The only element of my trip that could have improved was to have more time for research at the Lincoln Center although I managed to see some archived footage of tap dance and live music theatre shows as I had planned.

Highlights

Dinner with tappers @Cleopatra's Needle

There were so many interesting events happening while I was in NY but some great moments have to be the impromptu dinners and informal discussions with an eclectic mix of people from the international tap dance community. I made good connections with other international professional tap dancers and New York-based musicians. Working with musicians during the intensive was a great experience as it enabled me to realise my existing skills and build confidence as a tap dancing musician.

Another highlight was my surprise to see AboutTime included in the World of Tap Dance conference during the segment of tap dance in Britain/ Ireland.

Suggestions for future Awardees
It helps to allow for flexibility within a planned schedule. I had tentatively planned to attend a tap dance festival during my first week in New York. It turned out I was too unwell to do the festival classes during the first few days but I was able to attend tap conferences, screenings and shows, which turned out well, if not better than planned.

Always plan rest time. I was fortunate to able to extend my trip in order to cover further research elements since I was so exhausted after the intensive!

A Trailblazer’s journey: Thinking, planning and doing
Included in the report was my article that featured in ADAD’s Hotfoot magazine, Special edition, Sept 2010

To order a copy email hotfoot@adad.org.uk

Links
• Trip photo album
• Lisa Ullmann Travelling Scholarship Fund Award Winners List 2010-2011
• Download PDF of the full report (from LUTSF website)

On Thursday 1st July I fly to the Big Apple for a month of all things tap related. Although I’m not signed up for any TAP CITY classes I’ve been browsing the website and thinking about doing one of the 4-day intensives. But I’ll have to wait and see how it goes. I’ve noted down the events that are happening and plan to attend talks, films and perhaps a performance. There are so many things to do in NYC so I know I’ll have to pace myself in order to make the most of it.

The real focus of my trip to New York is to attend Heather Cornell’s 20th Anniversary NYC Rhythm Tap Intensive Workshop with live music and do research at the Lincoln Centre for the Performing Arts. With two solid weeks of “Back to our roots – Jazz” the intensive is just what I’ve been looking for. And being in New York it is also the perfect opportunity catch up with friends and relatives, and put some faces to those Facebook tap acquaintances!

Research and professional development supported by LUTSF and ADAD

Michèle and I continuously exchange ideas on tunes to listen to, and occassionally get together to try out new ideas. We have also been able to run through ideas at general tap sessions such as jams. I am currently building a working relationship with all three musicians through professional performances. One of these engagements was at Ronnie Scott’s in March 2010 as part of the Women in Jazz Week 8-13 March 2010. Michèle invited me as a special guest hoofer to work with her and her band alongside several other fabulous, special guest female musicians (Michèle’s line up). It was my first opportunity to work with a six-piece jazz band and it was particularly exciting to perform for the first time at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London.

Benefits
Mentor
It is proving to be beneficial to have a mentor as part of the Trailblazer Fellowship, particularly for identifying and gaining advice on specific goals. I have had two sessions with my mentor, Tim Richards that have included doing practical music tasks, as well as suggestions on jazz music to listen to for ideas and inspiration. As I hoped, the sessions also tie in nicely with the Blues Piano course I’m enrolled on (with Tim), which helps to develop my musicality and arranging skills for working with musicians.

Tap dance equipment
Another positive achievement has been my research into a suitable tap dance floor. I’m currently awaiting details of when I can try out a new tap board. When it is completed I’ll be able to make a bulk order on behalf of other interested tap dancers in the UK (and so reduce costs).

Research trip – July 2010
With the support of the ADAD Trailblazer Fellowship I’m fully signed up for a two week workshop in July 2010 – Heather Cornell’s 20th Anniversary NYC Rhythm Tap Intensive Workshop: Back to our roots – Jazz intensive. This 20th Anniversary Celebration will be the last one and is limited to only twenty participants. As the title suggests, it will be rooted in jazz and there will be musicians to work with. It will be a great opportunity to learn new material, brush up on technique and develop ways to work with musicians, all of which work towards my project goals. www.manhattantap.org

I am grateful to be a winner of the Lisa Ullman Travelling Scholarship Fund 2010-2011 for the research trip of my ADAD Trailblazer project.

ADAD brought expert Sinead Macmanus on board to lend us Trailblazer’s a helping hand. Sinead began with a virtual meeting (online) to plan for the actual day. It turned out that there were many subjects related to running a dance business that we wanted to cover.

The online meeting proved to be key in setting up the schedule for the day and although the list of subjects for Sinead to cover seemed a bit ambitious, she successfully covered planning, strategy, budgeting and financial management, funding, touring and venues in the session, and allowed time to discuss things at the end. And since the day was rather information intensive Sinead also provided additional resources that would be useful for us mull over in our own time. I still have a few things to chase myself up on but it’s good to know there’s a support system pointing me in the right direction when the time comes.

Now all I need to do is set myself up with a workable system I can maintain to stay on top of the management of projects.

I plan to use this opportunity for research and development in tap and jazz music practice, and also towards building an independent tap and live music group. This project idea had been floating around in my head for sometime but things started to fall into place when I first sat down and wrote out my plans earlier this year before I found out about the bursary. Writing the proposal helped me to refine the project idea and had already made up my mind that I would make a start even before I had applied.

One of the tasks I assigned myself to compliment my continuing professional development as a tap dancer was to take up playing the piano again so I could expand my jazz musical prowess! Grateful for all those classical piano lessons and grades I did until I was 19 (plus a short introduction to jazz I did back in 2002) I was able to sign up to an Intemediate Blues Piano course at Goldsmiths College.

I’ll be keeping an online journal on the details and progress of my project over the next few months so keep an eye out under the blog sub-category Trailblazer Fellowship. I’ll also be blogging about how the piano lessons are going and the first entry is Blues Piano 29 September – 9 November 2009.

Find out about ADAD’s Trailblazer Fellowship