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.