The Willson Center for Humanities and Arts will sponsor internationally acclaimed tap dance virtuoso Heather Cornell (above) April 16–20 in a five-day residency with the department of dance. Cornell will perform with Athens jazz bassist Chris Enghauser at UGA’s New Dance Theatre April 19 at 7 p.m. The performance is free and open to the public.
Cornell collaborated twice with the late jazz bass icon Ray Brown, performing in concert with his trio at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall in 1997.
Cornell’s residency fosters collaboration between jazz musicians and tap dancers at all stages of their training and performance. Band, chorus and orchestra directors as well as studio dance teachers, and students of tap dance and jazz music are especially encouraged to attend the performance.
“All fans of jazz music and tap dance will enjoy the April 19 performance,” said Mark Wheeler, UGA professor of dance who organized Cornell’s residency here.
Cornell developed her style as an apprentice to six of the first generation of American tap masters and performed in New York, Los Angeles and across Canada with Buster Brown, in Paris and New York with Eddie Brown, at the Apollo Theater in New York with the Copasetics and Silver Belles, at New York’s Lincoln Center with Cookie Cook, at the Village Gate Jazz Club with Steve Condos and at New York’s Town Hall with Chuck Green. Her TV credits include choreographic commissions and performances on a national KQED special with Honi Coles, Gregory Hines’ Tap Dance in America for Great Performances on PBS and the Canadian Television jazz series Sounds Impressive.
