"Art Happens Here"

by Janet Anderson

dance

There's some jammin' going on tomorrow night at Indre Studios. It's all about sound, even though the headliner is a dancer -- Germaine Ingram, a tap dancer who makes music with her feet. She's getting together with five jazz musician friends -- Tyrone Brown (bass), Dave Burrell (piano), Rich Mossman (percussion), Gerald "Twig" Smith (guitar) and Bobby Zankel (saxophone) -- to have a sound session and to see what happens.

Although Ingram's a lawyer, and currently director of the Children's Investment Strategy, she's also been a tap pro for a long time. She learned from Philadelphia dance master LaVaughn Robinson, a gentleman who started tapping on Philadelphia streets back in the 1930s when tap dance was the cool thing to do.

Ingram wanted to pull this group together and just be loose, because "very often in rehearsal and at practice," she explains, "I've felt the greatest freedom to explore with the musicians. And in the last few years I've been more and more enamored of working with musicians." Many tappers work strictly alone, their feet making the music. Much of the work Ingram's done with Robinson has been a cappella, with just the two dancing sounds off each other. "Tap's instrumental, but also dance," Ingram observes. "I've struggled with the issue of how to create complex rhythm while making the dance engaging visually."

Tomorrow night at the recording studio, expect some sweet sounds. The performance, part of the Philadelphia Folklore Project's "Art Happens Here" artist residency program, will be a bit of everything: choreographed pieces, snippets of works in progress and a lot of fantastic experimentation by a great tap dancer and her fabulous jazz musician friends. Ingram hopes "the audience has as much fun as we do."

"Art Happens Here," with Germaine Ingram, Fri., May 7, 7:30 p.m., $10, Indre Studios, 1418 S. Darien St., 215-468-7871, www.folkloreproject.org.

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