Discover "Too soon to discover planets, too late to discover islands:"
Tap dance, live music, masks, and physical theater come together as the acclaimed artist stages encounters rooted in Taíno and early colonial Puerto Rican history - exploring and exploding themes of myth, violence, and resistence.

DOORS 2026

Saturday, May 2, 2026 at 6 PM
The Paramount Theatre

Featuring Nile Rodgers & CHIC

With performances by Music from the Sole and more to be announced

The 2026 Joe's Pub Annual Gala

The Joe's Pub Gala is destined to be a fabulous evening of standout performances from 2026 Vanguard Honoree Justin Vivian Bond and band, Mafer Bandola, Kate Douglas, Daniel Emond, Lisa Stephen Friday, Bianca Leigh, Taylor Mac, Pooja Reddy, Gregory Richardson, and Garnet Williams.

House Is Open / Going Dark @ Joe’s Pub

Music From The Sole - New York’s celebrated tap-and-live-music company led by artists Leonardo Sandoval and Gregory Richardson - brings a specially adapted version of their new evening-length work, House Is Open / Going Dark, to Joe’s Pub. Originally created for large proscenium stages, this intimate adaptation reveals the musical core of the work in a way uniquely suited to the Pub’s atmosphere. Blurring the boundaries between dance and music, Music From The Sole celebrates tap’s Afro-diasporic roots through driving bass lines, percussive footwork, and improvisation shaped by jazz, Afro-Brazilian rhythms, and house. With dancers and musicians sharing the stage, audiences are invited into the close-up details of rhythm, breath, and conversation between bodies and instruments - a vibrant, high-energy experience crafted for jazz listeners, rhythm lovers, and anyone excited by the possibilities of dance as music.

SOUNDspace + A Swing Suite

Join award-winning tap dance company Dorrance Dance for a brand new program that showcases the musicality and versatility of its “close-knit family” (Wall Street Journal) of dancer-musicians, featuring the DD choreographic debut of longtime company members Elizabeth Burke and Luke Hickey. Paired with Michelle Dorrance’s critically acclaimed SOUNDspace | REDUX (2013)

Too soon to discover planets, too late to discover islands

Orlando Hernández & The Knee-Heart Connection share excerpts from Too soon to discover planets, too late to discover islands, an adventurous tap dance-theater work featuring live music, masks, and physical storytelling. The showing will revisit prior material alongside new work developed during their Works & Process residency at Bridge Street Theatre.

SOUNDspace + A Swing Suite

Join award-winning tap dance company Dorrance Dance for a brand new program that showcases the musicality and versatility of its “close-knit family” (Wall Street Journal) of dancer-musicians, featuring the DD choreographic debut of longtime company members Elizabeth Burke and Luke Hickey. A Swing Suite (2023) is tremendously inspired by the music that Burke and Hickey’s mentor, Gene Medler, exposed to them as kids, and how it shaped their taste and interest throughout their entire artistic lives. The work is an homage to Gene, and an offering around the idea that just about every road leads back to home. Paired with Michelle Dorrance’s critically acclaimed SOUNDspace | REDUX (2013), an originally site-specific work that explored the unique acoustics of New York City’s St. Mark’s Church through the myriad sounds and textures of the feet, which has been adapted and continues to explore what is most beautiful and exceptional about tap dancing – movement as music. By supporting the development and touring of new works alongside company classics, Dorrance Dance continues “blasting our notions of tap dance” with every performance.

New Work Premiere @ Guild Hall!

Blurring the line between concert, dance, and music performance, Music From The Sole is a tap dance and live music company that celebrates tap’s roots in the African diaspora. Co-founders composer and bassist Gregory Richardson and Brazilian tap dancer and choreographer Leonardo Sandoval, draw from Afro-Brazilian, jazz, soul, house, rock, and Afro-Cuban styles.

>The performance marks the culmination of Music From the Sole’s multi-year Guild Hall William P. Rayner Artist-in-Residence and premiere of their new work, House Is Open, Going Dark.

Come early and join the on-stage house party with Music From The Sole and Our Fabulous Variety Show. Expect spontaneous dance, improvised riffs, and lots of popcorn!

Music From The Sole

I DIDN'T COME TO STAY

Music From The Sole is a tap dance and live music company that blurs the line between concert dance and music performance and celebrates tap’s roots in the African diaspora. Led by Brazilian tap dancer and choreographer Leonardo Sandoval and composer and bassist Gregory Richardson, I Didn’t Come to Stay explores themes of immigration and family, and pulses with influences from Afro-Brazilian, jazz, soul, house, rock, and Afro-Cuban music.  Commissioned by Works & Process at the Guggenheim in 2020, the piece was first supported through a pioneering bubble residency at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park in summer 2020. 

Choreographed by Leonardo Sandoval, with improvisation by the dancers
Music by Gregory Richardson, with Leonardo Sandoval, José Cruzata, Josh Davis, Noé Kains, and Jennifer Vincent
Lighting Design by Kathy Kaufmann
Costume Design by Dede Ayite
Sound Design by Christopher Marc

From July 9–12, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts presents Summer Forum, bringing together teaching artists, educators, and practicing artists to engage, share, and imagine the next 50 years of teaching artistry around the world. This is your opportunity to connect with fellow professionals—both locally and internationally—as we learn from the first half century of teaching artistry and dream up the next 50 years. The forum will take place across Lincoln Center’s sprawling campus as part of Summer for the City, offering a four-day immersion into experiential workshops, performances, expert panels, roundtables, and social networking events. It is our hope that you leave the celebration with fresh ideas to propel your creative vision forward; innovative, new tools to incorporate into your practice; and new friends and colleagues for years to come.

Featuring MUSIC FROM THE SOLE

Music From The Sole

"I Didn't Come To Stay"

Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025
The Moore Theatre

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 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, Music From The Sole has grown to a group of 15 dancers and musicians, touring across the US and abroad. They have received support from the New England Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, O’Donnell-Green Music and Dance Foundation, New Music USA, and Dance/ NYC, and recently premiered new works commissioned 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 band at dance and music venues. Recent credits include appearances at the Joyce Theater, Lincoln Center, Jacob’s Pillow, Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum, New York City Center, Vail Dance Festival, The Yard, White Bird, Kaatsbaan, Caramoor Jazz Festival, Bryant Park, the 92NY, and Tap in Rio. They partner frequently with organizations like the National Dance Institute and Lincoln Center Education, engaging through dance and music with communities across NYC and beyond.

 Music From The Sole’s I Didn’t Come to Stay blurs the line between concert dance and musical performance, celebrating tap’s roots in the African diaspora with a mix of Afro-Brazilian, jazz, soul, house, and Afro-Cuban styles. “An unforced crowd-pleaser, original and true to itself.” – The New York Times 

Presented by Newman Center Presents
Buy Tickets
Part of the 2024-25 Dance Subscription Package

DORRANCE DANCE: The Nutcracker Suite

Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn, arrangement

Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky, composer

Tap shoes kick pointe shoes aside in this American version of the holiday classic, The Nutcracker Suite. Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn reimagined Tchaikovsky’s score in 1960, providing today’s preeminent tap company a platform to jazz up the holidays. The colorful fantasy was featured as the nation’s Nutcracker in 2023 with appearances at the Kennedy Center. 

Dorrance Dance

The Nutcracker Suite

Tap and jazz take on Tchaikovsky in Dorrance Dance’s vibrant version of this beloved holiday classic. The renowned tap company boogies, slides, struts and dives through the magical story of a young girl and her fantastical Christmas adventure. Taking their cue from Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s extraordinary reinterpretation of The Nutcracker Suite, Michelle Dorrance and co-choreographers Hannah Heller and Josette Wiggan transform the Sugar Plum Fairy into a slinky Sugar Rum Cherry, while the “March of the Toy Soldiers” becomes a swinging “Peanut Brittle Brigade.” Featuring live music.

Tap, percussive dance, samba, house, and original live music come together in I Didn’t Come to Stay, an evening-length work from New York City-based Music From The Sole. Brazilian tap dancer and choreographer Leonardo Sandoval and bassist/composer Gregory Richardson lead eight dancers and a five-piece band in a performance that explores tap’s lineage and connections to other Afro-Diasporic forms. Conceived as a Carnival fever dream, I Didn’t Come to Stay embraces shared roots across the diaspora to reflect on what shapes their cultural and artistic identity, and celebrates the joy, depth, and virtuosity of Black dance and music.

I Didn’t Come to Stay is a commission from Works & Process at the Guggenheim and was created with the support of a summer 2020 Works & Process bubble residency at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park, as well as residency support in March 2021 from The Yard, an April 2021 Pillow Lab residency at Jacob’s Pillow, a February 2022 Creative residency at Chelsea Factory, and a March 2022 Works & Process LaunchPAD “Process as Destination” residency at Catskill Mountain Foundation. Additional rehearsal support was provided by the American Tap Dance Foundation.

This program is supported in part by the Irene Hunter Fund for Dance at MASS MoCA in association with Jacob’s Pillow.

Blurring the line between concert, dance, and music performance, Music From The Sole is a tap dance and live music company that celebrates tap’s roots in the African diaspora. Led by Brazilian tap dancer and choreographer Leonardo Sandoval and composer and bassist Gregory Richardson, Music From The Sole draws from Afro-Brazilian, jazz, soul, house, rock, and Afro-Cuban styles. See a preview of a new Works & Process commission that culminates a weeklong Works & Process LaunchPAD residency at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park.

Commissioned by Works & Process, this work has been developed in a Works & Process LaunchPAD residency at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park (2024) and an upcoming residency in January 2025 at Guild Hall William P. Rayner Artist-in-Residence.

This new work is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by Works & Process, the Joyce Theater Foundation, The Yard, Guild Hall, Dance Place, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and NPN. More information: npnweb.org. Additional support was provided by the Harkness Dance Foundation, a 2023 Alan M. Kriegsman Creative Residency at Dance Place, and as 2023 William P. Rayner Artist-in-Residence at Guild Hall.

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 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.

Daniella Barbarito / Latin American Indie Folk.

Latin American Indie Folk, blending traditional & modern sounds with unique cuatro tunings, choral vocals, & psychedelic arrangements, reflecting Caribbean heritage. Part of “The Queer Conservatory of Queens: Celebrating LGBTQ+ Voices” series, it highlights diverse musical creativity and innovation.

Michelle Dorrance & Friends

Featuring Jillian Meyers, Josette Wiggan, + more!
With special guests Chloe Arnold’s Syncopated Ladies

Fri / Sept 6, 2024 - 8:00PM

MacArthur Award recipient Michelle Dorrance leads a night of expansive tap dance.

Daniela Barbarito is multi-disciplinary artist who was born and raised in Caracas and currently lives in Madrid. 
Her music reimagines Venezuelan tradition with a modern approach and deals with memory and identity with a humor, pathos and nostalgia that borrows from the bolero cannon.  She accompanies herself on the Venezuelan cuatro, adding a touch of folklore to her post-modern approach.