Tag: Chapel Hill

• April 4th, 2025 The Gogue Performing Arts Center, Auburn
• April 9th – 10th, 2025 Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill
• April 15th, 2025 The Gaillard Center, Charleston
• April 25th – 26th, 2025 Emerson Cutler Majestic Theatre, Boston
• May 1st, 2025 Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, College Park
• May 9th – 10th, 2025 Bluma Appel Theater, Toronto
• June 25th – 29th, 2025 Jacob’s Pillow Festival, Becket
• July 11th – 12th, 2025 Colours International Dance Festival, Stuttgart
• July 30th, 2025 Vail Dance Festival, Vail

approx. 70 minutes

American Tap Dance Reinvented

As a pioneer of new tap dance, Michelle Dorrance has elevated the clacking of metal taps to an entirely new level. She has always sought to engage with other styles and with contemporary dance. Now, in collaboration with New York breakdancer Ephrat Asherie, Dorrance enters into a dialogue with street dance, which, like tap dance, originally emerged as a subversive form on the streets, rooted in protest and growing through improvisation. From the reflections of these two strong women, a connection develops, and other dancers contribute their own styles.

The Center Will Not Hold is born from “a little room,” a short duet created and performed by Ephrat Asherie and Michelle Dorrance in December 2022. The expanded and reimagined work now features 11 singular performers deeply rooted in one or many street, club and vernacular dances: house, breaking, hip hop, tap dance, Chicago Footwork, Detroit Jit, Litefeet, Memphis Jookin and body percussion.

Set to music by Donovan Dorrance with live percussion by world class drummer and percussionist, John Angeles, the piece is not about virtuosity or competition. It has a more serious theme, namely the current state of the world, where people wear masks to protect themselves. Dialogue gives rise to the question of whether the center, the middle of humanity, can hold – or whether everything will break apart and our world will plunge into chaos.