Featured photo: Tapology – Youth Ensemble
Festival to honor award-winning artist Jason Samuels Smith as 2023 Living Legend
FLINT, Mich. – Tapology, in partnership with FIM, recently announced the 2023 Fall Tap Festival, and the Embodied Experiences: A Spiritual Dimension of Sound Concert. The festival will be a celebration of faith, tradition, generational connections and community. The highly anticipated festival will honor Emmy and Gregory Hines Award-winning tap dancer, teacher, choreographer and humanitarian Jason Samuels Smith, during the annual Living Legend Luncheon. Events will also include Visiting Schools Days, a tap competition and master classes taught by world-class artists and performers. The festival will take place from Thursday, November 2 to Sunday, November 5, 2023.
“Embodied Experiences is an expression – by world-class artists, educators and our youth ensemble – of the human common denominators of rhythm and music,” said Tapology CEO Alfred Bruce Bradley.
He added: “We invite everyone to join us in this celebration and immerse themselves in education and entertainment on the beautiful FIM campus.”
The 2023 Fall Tap Festival will feature master classes and performances by some of tap’s most acclaimed artists, performers and educators, including Tapology CEO Bruce Bradley, Artistic Director Frances Bradley-Vilier, Associate Artistic Director Kandee Hogan and Outreach Director Shanzell Page, Living Legend Jason Samuels Smith, and teaching and performing artists Baakari Wilder, Alexandria “Brinae Ali” Bradley, Sarah Savelli, Maurice Chestnut, Quynn Johnson, Caleb Teicher,as well as African percussionist Baba Kevin Collins, Sint Maarten Afro-Caribbean artist and griot Clara Reyes, and ethnochoreologist Marsae Mitchell.
“Dance in all its forms is a representation of culture and relationships,” said FIM President and CEO Rodney Lontine.
He added: “This partnership between FIM and Tapology is a long-standing tradition through which exceptionally talented dancers, instructors, musicians and choreographers come together. It truly hails the power of the performing arts for all of Flint and beyond.”
Tapology will kick off the festival with Visiting Schools Days, where students from Flint-area schools will join Tapology’s teaching and performing artists, and musicians for beginning-level tap dance classes. There will also be a historical presentation at the Flint Public Library and the interactive Visiting Schools Days Live performance at FIM Dort Music Center.
Festival attendees can participate in Tapology’s master classes for beginner, advanced, intermediate and adult tap dance levels, along with African drumming, Afro-Caribbean and African dance classes, led by Tapology’s teaching and performing artists, from Friday, November 3 to Sunday, November 5, 2023. Participants will also have the opportunity to showcase their tap skills and creativity during the tap competition, on Saturday, November 4 at 7 p.m. The master classes and tap competition will be located at the FIM Dort Music Center, located at 1025 E. Kearsley Street. For schedule information and to register for classes, participants can visit www.tapology.org.
For this year’s grand finale, Tapology and FIM will present the Embodied Experiences: A Spiritual Dimension of Sound Concert. Embodied Experiences is a thrilling exploration of the ways humanity intertwines through sound and movement; with tap dance being a universal language that stimulates our dynamic human experience.
“The culture of tap dance is an interdisciplinary and linguistic art form that activates our senses and ability to embrace dance from a unique perspective,” said Tapology Artistic Director Frances Bradley-Vilier.
“Embodied Experiences is a celebration of living legends who are blazing trails through this artistry while also honoring those who have come before us in the arts – music, tap dance, dance and sound – and the rhythms of life that connect us to embrace, embody and transform humanity,” Bradley-Vilier. added.
The concert will feature special tributes to the 2023 Tapology Living Legend Jason Samuels Smith, and Creative Expressions Dance Studio Founder and Tapology Board Member Sheila Miller-Graham. Attendees can also look forward to live dance and musical performances by Tapology’s beloved Youth Ensemble, African Drumming by Baba Kevin, Tapology Music Director Nick Rolfe, vocalist Cherisse Bradley and award-winning bandmembers drummer Winard Harper, bassist Jonathon Muir-Cotton, saxophonist Alex Colista and guitarist Reichlin Small. The Embodied Experiences Concert will be on Sunday, November 5, 2023, at 7 p.m., at FIM Whiting Auditorium, located at 1241 E. Kearsley Street.
Tapology’s 2023 Fall Tap Festival and Embodied Experiences Concert is supported by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, Ruth Mott Foundation, James A. Welch Foundation, the Community Foundation of Greater Flint, Child Welfare Society of Flint and the Greater Flint Sunrise Rotary Club. Festival partners include FIM, the Flint Public Library, Flint Community Schools, Creative Expressions Dance Studio, Heart of Worship Dance Studio, Flint Job Corps, Flint Housing Commission, Kuungana Drum & Dance and the Mass Transportation Authority.
For more information and to purchase tickets for the 2023 Fall Tap Festival Master Classes, please visit www.tapology.org.
Tickets for the Embodied Experiences Concert cost $26 and can be purchased at https://tickets.thefim.org/tapology.
ABOUT TAPOLOGY
Tapology was founded by Alfred Bruce Bradley, with a mission to preserve and promote the art of tap dance through performance, education and community outreach. Tapology seeks to identify and develop the creative talents of children, through the art of tap dance and percussive and musical art forms derived from African origins, via year-round integrated programming. The key programs include the Annual Fall Festival of Dance and Concert, FlintS.T.O.NE. Movers, the Summer Tap Intensive, Youth Ensemble and Sweet & Able Mentoring Program. For more information, visit www.tapology.org.
ABOUT FIM
Celebrating more than 100 years of service to the community, FIM is a multi-disciplinary performing arts organization transforming the community through the power of the performing arts. Reaching more than 300,000 people annually through lessons, classes, outreach programs, performances and concerts, FIM remains the oldest example of community-planned music in the United States. FIM is credited as an early adopter of the concept of arts and culture as an integral aspect of community well-being and has continued to grow and expand to meet the changing needs of Flint and the region.
