Jeannie Hill
Kristen Korb
Ryan Korb
Katherine Kramer  

Joanne Barrett
Katherine Kramer
Virginia Mayhew
Kenneth Metzker
Francesca Tanksley 

Jane Goldberg
The Equus Project
Linda Svendsen & Bill Devine
Ann Tappan
Pablo Cano 

Katherine Kramer
KATHERINE KRAMER has been a vital presence in the resurgence and evolution of classic jazz and tap dance since the 1970’s.  Grateful for having had the opportunity to work and study with many of the finest of tap’s masters and contemporary innovators, she has maintained a commitment to sharing this legacy.  In Bozeman, MT, since 1996, she has produced “Rhythm Explosion”, an interdisciplinary summer festival featuring many of tap’s finest, including, in 2007, Sarah Petronio and the late Jimmy Slyde.   In 2008 she received a Fulbright Grant, to work in Prague, CR and South America.  In 2008 she received a Creation Fund Grant from the National Performance Network, creating an evening-length work, “Stop Look Listen,” which was featured in the American Tap Dance Foundation’s  first “SoundCheck” at Judson Theater, NY, in 2009.   While living in Miami, FL, she created three works of tap, movement, poetry and jazz.  The first,  “Not At Home,” featured one of her important mentors, Brenda Bufalino, and the others, “Moving Jazz,” and “Choices,” featured her favorite female jazz artists, Virginia Mayhew, Francesca Tanksley and Kirsten Korb.  As well in Miami, she has enjoyed collaborating on many projects with choreographer Joanne Barrett, percussionist, Kenneth Metzker, and visual artist/puppeteer, Pablo Cano.   Her one-woman show,  “Rhythms of the Heart,” toured from 1992 – 2000, including performances at Jacob’s Pillow and international festivals.  She was one of 12 dancers chosen to work with ‘Honi’ Coles in the first creative residency for tap at The Colorado Dance Festival in 1989 and was a featured soloist at the 1996 Tap Extravaganza in NY.  She has taught at numerous tap festivals and been commissioned to create works for companies throughout the country.   In Havana, Cuba she has taught tap to Danza Contemporarea and Conjunto Folklorica de Cuba and in 2004 she was invited to Fortaleza, Brazil to work with Co. Vata, directed by Brazilian choreographer, Valeria Pinheiro.   A gypsy at heart, Katherine continues to move about, grateful to be experiencing a rich life of family and friends, dance and music. 

Now living outside of Bozeman, MT, she is developing CrazyView Studio and Artist Retreat.  This summer marks the inaugural season of activities in this new space and will focus on creating community through art and art through community.

For further information about Katherine Kramer and Katherine Kramer Projects, please visit:
www.myspace.com/StopLookListenConcert

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Kenneth Metzker - Percussion
Kenneth Metzker began studying classical piano at the age of 4. At 16 he began studying percussion and went on to receive a full scholarship to the University of Kentucky, studying under Prof. James Campbell.  While surrounded by dance his entire life, Kenneth also began studying Afro-Cuban and Brazilian music under Michael Spiro, Los Munequitos de Matanzas, Santiago Nani, and others, and has traveled to Cuba and Brazil as a student, teacher and performer.  He was a participant at the World Marimba Competition in Stuttgart, Germany 2002.   After completing his degree in music, Kenneth moved to Miami in 2004 and has accompanied Daniel Lewis and Peter London, among others, at the New World School of the Arts up to the present. He was invited to be a guest teacher at the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater 

and University of Tennessee, Martin.  He has been an instructor, accompanist and performer at Rhythm Explosion Dance and Music Festival in Bozeman, Montana for many years, as well as serving as an accompanist for the past three years at the Florida Dance Festival.   In 2004 he worked and performed with Cia. Vata Dance  Co.  and musial theatre troupe,  Donna Zefinha in Fortaleza, Brazil. He has collaborated and performed with choreographer and tap artist, Katherine Kramer for the past five years and has composed for and performed with Brazz Dance, directed by choreographer, Augusto Soledade.  In Miami he is a sought after percussionist in the studio, live music scene and dance community as a Latin percussionist specializing in Cuban and Brazilian drumming.

www.lanzamusica.com

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Jeannie Hill
As a tap soloist and company member of Jump Rhythm Jazz Project and Manhattan Tap Jeannie Hill has shared the stage and studied with numerous tap luminaries, superior jazz dancers and musicians nationally and internationally. A varied performance career in theatre, dance and comedy informs her teaching and choreographic creations at the University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point, where she is an Assistant Professor of Dance. Celebrating JRJP's unique rhythm-first approach to movement learning, Hill continues to perform with, teach and choreograph for the company when schedules permit.

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Kristin Korb
Kristin Korb is not just a singing bassist. She is a premier singer with a personal approach and a deep sense of swing. She transports you to other worlds with her ballads. Oh yeah, she plays a nasty bass, too. While studying privately with jazz bass icon Ray Brown, he arranged for her first recording with his trio, Introducing Kristin Korb, on Telarc Records. Her new release, In The Meantime, features her innovative arrangements of jazz standards with the help of jazz greats Bob Sheppard, Nick Mancini, Llew Matthews, Steve Barnes and Larry Koonse. When she’s not on the road with her trio (featuring Llew Matthews and Steve Barnes), she’s on the faculty at the University of Southern California and Azusa Pacific University

www.kristinkorb.com

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Ryan Korb
Ryan Korb is Professor of Jazz Percussion and Jazz Studies at the University of Wisconsin- Stevens Point.  A native of Billings, Montana, Ryan won the 1990 Governor’s Scholarship to attend the National Music Camp in Interlochen, Michigan.    Ryan now co-leads an Afro-Cuban drum trio, Africa->West.  The trio plays original compositions based on traditional African and Cuban music.  Among many other concerts, the trio was invited to play at the Percussive Arts Society’s International Convention.  As a sideman, Ryan has shared the stage with Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra, Jr., Saturday Night Live’s Valerie Naranjo, Bill Mays, Russell Malone, Byron Stripling, Llew Matthews, Tamir Hendelman, Barry Olsen, and Kristin Korb.  In addition to drum set, Ryan has performed as percussionist on the touring Broadway productions of Wicked, Spamalot, and others.  This last February Ryan had the opportunity to peroform with the tap duo, Tapage.

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Virginia Mayhew
Saxophonist-composer-arranger VIRGINIA MAYHEW has been an active participant in the New York jazz scene since 1987. In the course of her career, Virginia has worked with such renowned artists as Earl "Fatha" Hines, Cab Calloway, Frank Zappa, James Brown, Norman Simmons, Al Grey, Junior Mance, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Doc Cheatam, Rosemary Clooney, Marlena Shaw, Joe Williams, Leon Parker, Clark Terry, Kenny Barron, Chico O'Farrill, Ingrid Jensen, Claudio Roditi, Nnenna Freelon, and many others.

Virginia Mayhew has appeared in most of New York City's jazz venues, as well as performing throughout the United States, Europe, the Newly Independent States, the Caribbean, Bermuda, Australia, and Southeast Asia.

Virginia has performed at many international jazz festivals as a leader, and traveled twice as a representative of the United States as a Jazz Ambassador.

In addition to her own quartets and septet, Virginia is the Musical Director and saxophonist of the Duke Ellington Legacy, has recorded 6 CDs as a leader and numerous CDs as a sideperson.

For more on Virginia, please go to www.virginiamayhew.com

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Francesca Tanksley
Francesca Tanksley received her Masters in Music degree from Queens College, New York, where she studied piano and composition with legendary jazz musicians Sir Roland Hanna and Jimmy Heath. Noted as “a vivid presence” by jazz critic Nat Hentoff, she has performed at major jazz venues throughout the world, and has appeared as a featured guest on Marion McPartland’s NPR program, “Piano Jazz.” She leads her own group, the Francesca Tanksley Trio, is an integral member of the legendary Billy Harper Quintet, the Erica Lindsay Quartet, Howard Johnson’s HoJo5, and the Jeff “Siege” Siegel Quartet, all with whom she toured throughout Europe in the past several months. Additional performances have been with such notables as Melba Liston, David Newman, Cecil Payne, Clifford Jordan, Nick Brignola, Charles Davis, Slide Hampton, Diane Reeves, Sheila Jordan, Jay Clayton, and others. In addition to her performance accolades, Ms. Tanksley has garnered critical acclaim for her compositions. Noted as a “composer of worth” by legendary jazz tenor saxophonist and composer Jimmy Heath, she has recorded a collection of her original compositions on the Francesca Tanksley Trio’s debut CD, Journey, has composed commissioned works for tap dancer Katherine Kramer as well as St. Gregory’s Church’s “Woodstock Cycle,” and she has written arrangements for vocalist Laurel Masse, founding member of Manhattan Transfer. Her music can be heard on recordings with the Francesca Tanksley Trio, the Billy Harper Quintet, the Erica Lindsay Quintet, and the Jeff “Siege” Siegel Quartet, on labels such as DreamCaller Productions, Metropolitan Records, Evidence Records, Steeplechase Productions, Candid/Black Lion Productions, CAP, and Omagatogi. Ms. Tanksley serves as faculty in the New School Jazz Program at New School University in New York City, and at Berklee College of Music in Boston. For further information, visit www.francescatanksley.com, or www.dreamcallerproductions.com.

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Joanne Barrett
Joanne Barrett has made work, performed and taught dance since receiving her BFA from Ohio State University in 1986. As a dancer in Chicago, Joanne performed with the Chicago Repertory Dance Ensemble and independent choreographers Bob Eisen, Neta Pulvermacher and Ernst/Watson before joining the London based choreographer Michael Clark and his company in 1990. As a principal dancer with the Michael Clark Dance Company, Joanne performed extensively and was acknowledged as “Dancer of the Year” from TIME OUT LONDON and the Dance Umbrella.

Then in 1993 while residing in S. America Joanne danced and presented her work with Contradanza, and taught dance throughout Uruguay and Buenos Aires. Several years later, now Miami based, Joanne has collaborated and danced with many artists such as Katherine Kramer, Heather Maloney and Pablo Cano. She has been commissioned for her work by the Miami Light Project for the Here and Now Festival 2000, 2005, and 2008, FIU VH-100 Series, Karen Peterson and Dancers, Broward Community College, Tigertail Productions and the Good for Something Dancers.  She is one of the founding members of the Dancers Improv Group (2001) and continues to explore her love for improvisation.

Joanne’s technique classes are focused on connecting with space, energy and emotion through precision and sculpted movements. Classes also consist of  improvisational structures and imagery based explorations. Presently Joanne is exhibiting work and teaching at Excello and INKUB8 in Miami,touring and teaching with Katherine Kramer through Montana and New York, and receiving certification in Asthanga Yoga.

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Kelly Roberti

Kelly Roberti is a world-acclaimed musician and composer from Bozeman, Montana. His musical roots reach back over forty-five years to a childhood steeped in all genres by a family of music teachers and performers. Having played his first gig at the age of 11, his experiences have led to “street smart” technical skills on the bass and have translated into original compositions, performances, and workshop/clinics with the legendary musical giants of our times. Roberti’s style is a powerful blend of musical passion layered with an insightful grace and a spiritual edge.

For further information, visit:  www.KellyRoberti.com

Jane Goldberg

Jane Goldberg, the tap dancer with angst, reigns over a kingdom of music and dance lovers, and writers⁄storytellers. Called by her late friend, Jackie Raven, the "Jason Kidd" of tap, Jane is known for her assists, a keen observer/player/insider/outsider of the entire court. Her late friend, Gregory Hines claimed once she “single-footedly” pioneered the tap revival of the mid 1970’s, through her advocacy and background in journalism that brought public attention to the art once again.

With her ancestors Bathsheba Goldberg and the Wandering Shoes leading the way, Jane's roots date back to Biblical times, with matzoth dancing, the predecessor of sand dancing. Bathsheba and the Wandering Shoes travel the world over and in Spain laid down The Yiddish Roots of Flamenco, and in Trinidad, the Hebraic roots of Calypso. What was left of the tribe of wanderers gathered in New York and New Orleans, put metal on their shoes, and created what is now known as American tap dancing.

Some of her formative years were spent as a muckraking journalist for the BU News. She graduated from Boston University with a BA in political science. In 1972, the tap dancing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers infected her imagination. Soon the virus spread throughout most of her body/mind/spirit and she began to study tap.

At Boston University her professor Howard Zinn said, “If You can't liberate the world, you must liberate the ground upon which you stand.” Goldberg listened, gave up her curlers forever, and began to liberate the ground. She approached tap with a political sensibility and began reviving interest in the art.

She started by ferreting out many of the remaining tap giants of the 20th century, apprenticing herself to them, interviewing, documenting, and putting them back on stage. She performed with some of these greats in venues untouched by tapping feet. Her first presenters were Max Gordon of The Village Vanguard, NY's premiere jazz club, The Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia and The Goodman Theatre in Chicago.

The American Dance Festival and Jacob's Pillow presented Goldberg's Changing Times Tap, her company in 1978, venues where tap hadn't been performed in 18 and 37 years respectively. In 1986 Goldberg went solo with her act, Rhythm & Schmooze. With Sarah Safford, she developed an act called Tapping and Talking Dirty, and later the two brought Dorothy Wasserman in for The Rhythm Method involving original tap and comedy skits. Goldberg also produced an all women's tap show, Sole Sisters featuring tap's “grandes dames and prima tapperinas.”

Have feet, will travel, Goldberg has tapped on the tops of bars to the live music of blue chip artist Larry Rivers, in Paris with the late Steve Lacy, and as a Fulbright Scholar to India twice. She carried her shoes to the streets of Trivandrum, the five stars of Bombay, the women's collective of Madras, the shores of Goa, and the bowels of Calcutta.

She is the inventor of tap-a-gram™ and has been tapping and typing her life away since Bathsheba first began matzoth dancing at the foot of Mt. Sinai. 

Linda Svendsen and Bill Devine

Linda Svendsen and Bill Devine are both members of the Hillbilly Chrome bluegrass band and the Haywire Choir gospel quartet.

The Equus Project

The Equus Projects partners professional dancers with horses and their riders to create site-specific performance works that merge the artistry of dance with the athletics of equestrianism. The company creates works for arts and equine venues that are virtuosic and diverse, and exchanges dance and equestrian pedagogy with members of each field, to establish an interdisciplinary performance language.  Joanna Mendl-Shaw is Artistic Director.
For further information, visit:  www.dancingwithhorses.org 

Ann Tappan

Ann Tappan grew up in Montclair, New Jersey. She studied jazz composition
and arranging at Berklee College of Music then moved to New York to
participate in the mid-70’s improvisational loft scene. She relocated to the
West coast to study with pianist Art Lande and became part of his
experimental jazz school, first as a student then as an instructor. During
her time in the Bay Area she wrote and arranged for many live and recorded
projects and performed with such giants as Joe Henderson. Ann moved to
Montana in 1993 and quickly became a busy performer throughout the
Northwest. She has recorded eight CDs with the groups ThreeForm, Springhill
and the Tappan/Roberti/MJ Williams Trio. She has a private studio in Bozeman
and spent 10 years as director of the award winning Bozeman High School Jazz
Combo. Many of her students have entered college or conservatory as either a
music major or minor.

Pablo D. Cano
Born in Havana, Cuba in 1961, Pablo Cano was on the last flight out of the country before the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. He has since been a resident of Miami's Little Havana, and is regarded by art patrons and critics alike as one of Florida's premier contemporary fine artists.

Since childhood, marionettes have fascinated Pablo. At the age of ten, he was mounting elaborate plays for his family featuring puppets constructed of household bric-a-brac. His primary work today continues to center around the marionettes that he fashions from found objects, and the performance pieces he composes to showcase these protagonists.

Cano reveals, "I create a dream world where inanimate objects come to life – springing from my imagination in the Surrealist tradition. But my work is founded on Dada ideals. The Dadaists used chance, spontaneity, and childlike innocence in order to create their statement. Their intention, as is mine, was to break with tradition and painting technique and to return to the elemental basics of art; to start from scratch; to allow the process of imagination to unfold and begin anew each time I create."

Influences from the color palette of Russian Constructivist Alexandra Exter, who assembled marionettes in the 1920's, the mechanics of the pieces in Alexander Calder's Circus and Cubist bricolage can be seen in Pablo's work. By incorporating carefully selected discarded debris from the urban streets he frequents, as well as miscellany brought to his studio by friends from all over the world, Cano has ultimately developed his own charming and inventive palette that has been described as unlike any other artist's today.

Dr. Yolanda Sanchez, noted Curator and Artist, comments, "the work has remarkable energy – a sensation of things about to break free. Not just because most of his pieces have the capacity for movement, but because the accretion of divergent parts and the unique way that Pablo fuses them create a tremendous build-up of energy - a whole new entity of reordered parts, bigger and stronger than the individual pieces."

Bonnie Clearwater, Director and Chief Curator, MOCA North Miami observes, "Each marionette is a complete sculpture in its own right that is exhibited in the museum in its inanimate state; but when their creator and grand puppeteer Cano performs them, the figures take on a life force that causes the audience members to suspend their disbelief." She continues, "It was clear right from Cano's first productions at MOCA that a truly original artist, who marched to his own drummer, was in our midst. In the 1990's, at a time when conceptual art dominated the international art world, Cano followed his heart and passion, seeing treasures in garbage and bringing unforgettable characters into existence."

Pablo concludes, "For me, the most anticipated element of the process of creation is the final step – when the contributors (choreographers, dancers, actors, musicians, producers) sprinkle magic stardust over the tenderly assembled detritus and bring the cast of remarkably unique marionettes to life. I am sure the stardust has worked when I see in the faces of the audience young and old the unfolding of their connection with the characters in the production."

Cano employs numerous art forms in his work including oil and watercolor painting, fine drawing, charcoal and ceramic sculpture and is accomplished in each of these areas. He earned a MFA from Queens College of the City University of New York in 1985 and has studied and worked in New York, Paris, Baltimore and Miami. The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in North Miami, Florida has commissioned his work annually since 1997.

Pablo Cano's work is found in numerous public and private collections internationally including the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, FL; Museum of Art / Fort Lauderdale, FL; Lowe Museum, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL; Cintas Foundation, New York, NY; Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, SUNY at New Paltz, New Paltz, NY; The Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, GA; The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN; Art in Public Places, Olympia, GA; Bacardi, Miami, FL; R.J. Reynolds Company, Winston-Salem, NC; Sagamore Hotel, Collection of Martin & Cricket Taplin, Miami Beach, FL; Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL.

For additional information on the work of Pablo Cano, contact the artist at pdcano@bellsouth.net