Dorrance Dance is an award-winning tap dance company based in New York City celebrating its 10^th Anniversary! Led by Michelle Dorrance, the company supports dancers and musicians who embody and push the dynamic range that tap dance has to offer. The company’s mission is to engage with audiences on a musical and emotional level, and to share the complex history and powerful legacy of this Black American art form through performance and education.

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Michelle Dorrance is a New York City-based artist. Mentored by Gene Medler (North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble), she was fortunate to study under many of the last master hoofers. Career highlights include: STOMP, Derick Grant’s Imagine Tap!, Jason Samuels Smith’s Charlie’s Angels/ Chasing the Bird, Ayodele Casel’s Diary of a Tap Dancer, Mable Lee’s Dancing Ladies, and touring with Darwin Deez. Company work includes: Savion Glover’s Ti Dii, Manhattan Tap, Barbara Duffy and Co., JazzTap Ensemble, and Rumba Tap. Solo work ranges from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to commissions for the Martha Graham Dance Company and American Ballet Theatre. A 2018 Doris Duke Artist, 2017 Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow, and 2015 MacArthur Fellow, Dorrance is humbled to have been acknowledged and supported by United States Artists, The Joyce Theater, New York City Center, the Alpert Awards, Jacob’s Pillow, Princess Grace Foundation-USA, The Field, American Tap Dance Foundation, and the Bessie Awards. Dorrance holds a B.A. from New York University and is a Capezio Athlete.

Ephrat “Bounce” Asherie is a NYC based b-girl, dancer and choreographer, and a 2016 Bessie Award Winner for Innovative Achievement in Dance. As artistic director of Ephrat Asherie Dance (EAD), she has presented work nationally and internationally. Asherie received a 2019 NYFA Choreography Fellowship and Dance Magazine's Inaugural Harkness Promise Award in 2018.

Christopher Broughton is from Los Angeles and began dancing at age 11. Under Paul and Arlene Kennedy at Universal Dance, he was a member of the Kennedy Tap Company and is a two-time recipient of the national NAACP ACTSO Award. Performances include New York City Center’s Cotton Club Parade; Juba! Master’s of Tap and Percussive Dance at the Kennedy Center; and Broadway’s Tony® and Astaire® Award–winning production After Midnight and Jelly’s Last Jam.

Elizabeth Burke is a founding member of Dorrance Dance who spent eleven years under the direction of her mentor, Gene Medler, in the North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble. She is an alumna of the School at Jacob's Pillow and Marymount Manhattan College. Other performance credits include work with Bessie Award winner Nicholas Van Young's SoundMovement and the American Dance Festival alongside Luke Hickey. She has been described as a "deft and impassioned" dancer (The New York Times). 

Josh Davis is originally from Detroit, Michigan, and is currently based out of New York City. Davis has toured, recorded and performed with many jazz, blues, rock, Brazilian and dance groups throughout the United States, Europe, Brazil and Japan. Besides being cofounder of the surf rock trio, the New York Gremmies, Davis is also the drummer and member of the dance company, Music From The Sole. As a freelance drummer Josh has performed with the Rodney Whitaker Quartet, Wes “Warmdaddy” Anderson, Jon Batiste, Robyn Adele Anderson, Postmodern Jukebox, Gaby Moreno, Lucas Pino, People vs Larsen, The Hudson Horns, Starlight Girls, Emmet Cohen, Jeb Patton and many others. Davis earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Michigan State University in 2008 in music and mathematics.

Kate Davis grew up as a jazz darling, but she grew into something significantly more dynamic. Over the past five years she has refined her craft as a songwriter and jumped across genre lines. In November she released her indie rock debut, Trophy (Solitaire Recordings). Throughout twelve tumultuous tracks, she poetically reflects upon the intricacies of what it is to live, ruminating on topics too close to her heart — identity, self-worth, loss.

Donovan Dorrance hails from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he trained as a multi-instrumentalist before attending The University of North Carolina for a B.A. in philosophy. In 2014, he moved to Brooklyn to assist with his sister’s dance company and pursue his passion for music. Outside of the company, Dorrance composes for film, theater, podcasts, and your weird passion project.

Luke Hickey is a tap dancer, actor, and choreographer hailing from Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He trained for ten seasons with the North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble, under the direction of his mentor Gene Medler. Hickey is also an alumnus of The School at Jacob’s Pillow. His most recent performance credits include the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Theatre, Jazz at Lincoln Center, American Dance Festival, Ravello Festival, Oslo Jazz Festival, and Macy’s 34th Street NYC.

Michael L. Jellick, born in New Delhi, India, and raised in Detroit, MI, has become a mainstay on the Detroit Jazz scene and beyond. A well sought-after pianist, he has had the pleasure of playing with such greats as Bobby McFerrin, Common, Christian McBride, Sheila Jordan, Ingrid Jensen, James Carter, as well as a versatile array of other notable artists. He can be heard on the Blue Note Records release, Detroit Jazz City and loves being immersed in his equal love of teaching, composing and arranging. Michael is incredibly excited to be joining Dorrance Dance for this tour!

Aaron Marcellus, a singer, vocal coach, writer, musician, dancer, and actor from Atlanta, got his start in gospel music and has performed around the world. He has recorded albums and was voted top 24 on American Idol in 2011. After a world tour, Marcellus was featured in a ChapStick commercial, NBC’s Next Caller, and STOMP. He founded Surrender to Love, LLC, a foundation that supports arts programs and seeks to feed the hungry and Adventure Voice.

Claudia Rahardjanoto, born and raised in Berlin, Germany, started her professional dance career at the Deutsche Open Berlin. At fifteen, she fell in love with tap dance under the tutelage of Sven Göttlicher and Marie-Christin Zeisset and moved to NYC in 2003 to pursue a career in tap dance. She hopes to continue to share her love and passion for music and the art of tap dance through her teaching and performing worldwide.

Gregory Richardson is a multi-instrumentalist focusing on upright and electric bass. He's the co-creator of Music From The Sole, an Afro-Brazilian tap dance and live band show that is currently in residence at Lincoln Center Education. He's played drums, keys, and guitar with the band Darwin Deez at the world’s largest music festivals in the UK, Australia, Japan, Germany, and Austria.

Leonardo Sandoval, Brazilian tap dancer and choreographer, is renowned for blending America’s great tap tradition with Brazil’s rich rhythmic and musical heritage. A true dancer-musician, he is one of Dance Magazine’s “25 To Watch” for 2021 and the recipient of a 2022 Vilcek Foundation Prize for Creative Promise. In 2015, with composer Gregory Richardson, he founded Music From The Sole, a tap dance and live music company that has appeared at venues like Jacob’s Pillow, Lincoln Center, The Yard, and Works & Process at the Guggenheim. He has been a core member of Dorrance Dance since 2014.

Byron Tittle at a young age started tap dancing with David Rider and the American Tap Dance Foundation in his hometown of New York. Wanting to study other disciplines, he also trained at Broadway Dance Center and Steps on Broadway. Tittle recently toured the United States, Australia, and New Zealand with Hugh Jackman in The Man, The Music, The Show, and is humbled to have received a 2019 Princess Grace Foundation Dance Fellowship Award.

Matthew “Megawatt” West started dancing at the age of sixteen in Queens. Megawatt is an active part of NYC’s underground dance community and teaches youth classes throughout the five boroughs. Megawatt can be seen in Baz Lurhman’s Netflix series The Get Down and battling with his crew, the Mellow Animals.

Olivia Brown is a Stage Manager and Theater Technician who specializes in dance production, originally from New Hampshire and now living in New York City. She has worked at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in multiple capacities, most recently serving as the Production Manager for Site-Specific work during their 2021 festival season, which included original work by Dorrance Dance. In between production jobs, Brown spends her time as a freelance personal trainer, lighting technician, and an avid cyclist.

Kathy Kaufmann, a New York City native, has been happily designing for Dorrance Dance since its inception (SOUNDspace, The Blues Project, ETM, Myelination). A resident designer at Danspace Project whose work has been seen throughout the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia, she also teaches at Sarah Lawrence. She is a two-time Bessie recipient and was nominated for her work on Rebecca Davis’s Bloowst Windku in 2015. Recent projects include designs for Moriah Evans, Mariana Valencia, Jonathan Gonzales, David Parker, Tatyana Tennenbaum, Mina Nishimura, Morgan Bassichis, and Ephrat Asherie Dance.

Christopher Marc has been with Dorrance Dance since June of 2016. Marc has worked as a sound engineer with several companies around the country including the Kennedy Center, Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Mills Entertainment, Aquila Theatre, and Harlem Stage. Off-Broadway: The Black Book, Aquila Theatre's National Tour: Wuthering Heights, The Tempest, Fahrenheit 451, and Twelfth Night. Skylark Opera: Berlin to Broadway, Candide, Putting it Together, and La Rondine. Other: CT & Co’s More Forever and Pacific Symphony’s The Magic Flute.