Save the Date! (MFA Thesis)

It’s been a crazy ride as a grad student at Temple University, but the end is drawing nigh. My thesis concert, File May Be Corrupted: Inquiries in Jig, Clog, and Sand will be February 14th and 15th, 2019, at Conwell Theater on Temple University’s main campus here in Philadelphia. I’ll be sharing the evening with two other students from my cohort, Dawn States, and Ying Yu.

This piece explores historical and current threads connecting Appalachian flatfooting and tap dance to their roots in the jig, clog, and sand dances of the 19th century American stage. I begin with the following research questions: Where do the Irish and African diasporas intersect? What do we do with the legacies of blackface minstrelsy? How can these dances be re-contextualized in service of change and social justice? How does the improvisatory nature of tap dance embody conversant musicality?

Expect a multimedia immersion in banjo tunes, stories, personal narrative, and critical inquiries into the what, how, who, and why of American percussive dance…

Hope you can join us!

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~ by matthew olwell on October 2, 2019.