KidFEST OUTDOORS @CMEE: MUSIC FROM THE SOLE: Afro-Brazilian Funk & Dance

​Brazilian tap dancer and choreographer Leonardo Sandoval is renowned for blending America’s great tap tradition with Brazil’s rich rhythmic and musical heritage. A true dancer-musician, he is one of Dance Magazine’s “25 To Watch” for 2021 and the recipient of a 2022 Vilcek Foundation Prize for Creative Promise in Dance. 

In 2015, with composer Gregory Richardson, he founded Music From The Sole, and their work has been presented at venues like Jacob’s Pillow, Lincoln Center, and The Yard, Kaatsbaan, the 92Y, and Works & Process at the Guggenheim. In addition, he is a dancer with acclaimed tap company Dorrance Dance, touring across the US and abroad. Leonardo has also toured extensively as a solo artist, including at the National Folk Festival and Jazz at Lincoln Center. He is deeply committed to community engagement and education, and has brought performances and workshops to schools, prisons, hospitals, and parks, including through partnerships with Lincoln Center Education and the National Dance Institute, where he was the inaugural artist in residence.

Gregory Richardson is a composer, performer, and multi-instrumentalist focusing on upright, electric bass, and guitar. Along with Leonardo Sandoval, he's the co-creator and artistic director of Music from the Sole, as well as the musical director of the award winning tap dance company, Dorrance Dance. 

As a composer for dance, he’s premiered original compositions at The Guggenheim, BAM, The Joyce, and several times at The City Center of New York, most recently in collaboration with actor Bill Irwin. Gregory has participated in creative residencies at Lincoln Center Education, Jacob’s Pillow, The Yard, National Dance Institute, Guggenheim's Works and Process, and Kaatsbaan Cultural Park. Other credits include performing with Toshi Reagon in her opera of Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower,” touring with the indie band Darwin Deez, and playing with Grammy Award winning artists, Keyon Harrold and Marcus Gilmore.

https://www.gregoryrichardsonmusic.com/

Music from the Sole

Music From The Sole is a tap dance and live music company that celebrates tap's Afro-diasporic roots, particularly its connections to Afro-Brazilian dance and music, and its lineage to forms like house dance and passinho (Brazilian funk). Led by Brazilian dancer/ choreographer Leonardo Sandoval (2022 Vilcek Foundation Prize for Creative Promise) and by bassist/ composer Gregory Richardson, their work embraces tap’s unique nature as a blend of sound and movement, incorporating wide-ranging influences like samba, passinho, Afro-Cuban, jazz, and house.

Since their first performances in 2015 at Baltimore’s Creative Alliance, Music From The Sole has grown to a group of 15 dancers and musicians, touring and engaging with communities across the US and abroad. They have received support from the New England Foundation for the Arts (2021 National Dance Project grantees), New York State Council on the Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Jerome Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, O’Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, and Dance/ NYC, and were recently commissioned new works by Works & Process at the Guggenheim.

As part of its mission to bring tap dance, America's original vernacular dance form, to new audiences, they appear as both a dance company and a percussive-led band at dance and music venues. Recent credits include appearances at Lincoln Center, Jacob’s Pillow, The Yard, Kaatsbaan, Portland Ovations, Caramoor Jazz Festival, Bryant Park, the 92Y, and Tap in Rio; they are 2022 resident artists at Chelsea Factory.

Highlighting a commitment to community-centered artistic practice, the company partners frequently with organizations like the National Dance Institute and Lincoln Center Education, engaging through dance and music with communities across NYC and beyond.

http://www.musicfromthesole.com/

Described by The New York Times as “forward thinking” and “an exceptional opportunity to understand something of the creative process,” since 1984 Works & Process has welcomed New Yorkers to see, hear, and meet the most acclaimed performers and creators of the performing arts. Led by Producer Caroline Cronson and General Manager Duke Dang, Works & Process nurtures and champions new works, shapes representation, amplifies underrepresented voices and performing arts cultures, and offers audiences unprecedented access to generations of leading creators and performers. Artist-driven programs blending performance highlights with insightful discussions are, when permitted, followed by receptions in the rotunda, producing an opportunity for collective learning and community building, while also helping to cultivate a more inclusive, fair, and representative world.

Approximately fifty performances take place annually in the Guggenheim’s Frank Lloyd Wright–designed, 273-seat Peter B. Lewis Theater. Every summer Works & Process produces a program at the Guggenheim Bilbao as well. In 2017 Works & Process established a residency program inviting artists to create newly commissioned performances made in and for the iconic Guggenheim rotunda. In 2020 Works & Process Artists (WPA) Virtual Commissions was created financially support 84 new works and over 280 artists and nurture their creative process during the pandemic. To forge a path for artists to safely gather, create, and perform during the pandemic, from summer 2020 through spring 2021 Works & Process pioneered and produced 25 bubble residencies supporting 247 artists, made possible through the generous support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. On March 20, 2021, after over a year of shuttered indoor performances, with special guidance from New York State’s Department of Health, Works & Process, in the rotunda of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, was the first cultural organization to reopen live indoor ticketed performances.

About Works & Process LaunchPAD “Process as Destination”
An artistic incubator, Works & Process LaunchPAD pairs creators of the performing arts with a region-wide constellation of residency centers throughout New York State to develop new work and share works-in-progress. LaunchPAD supports today’s leading performing artists, and equally will support a wide variety of performing arts disciplines and artists from historically marginalized backgrounds. Recognizing that performing artists continue to face vulnerabilities, such as unstable income, lack of access to rehearsal space, and difficulty in compensating collaborating artists to develop their craft outside of specifc product-driven work, LaunchPAD will provide artists with a sequence of “made to measure” and fully-funded, one to tree week residencies throughout the Hudson Valley and Long Island. With residency partners, LaunchPAD will provide artist fees, devoted rehearsal space, living accommodations for collaborators, transportation, and healthcare insurance coverage.

To foster greater understanding for the artistic process, LaunchPAD will include open rehearsals, classes, and conclude each residency with local in-process presentations and discussions designed to promote appreciation for the complexities of the artistic process, but also to build future audiences for its performing artists. Select works will also be presented in New York City at Works & Process at the Guggenheim.