Dance piece premiere for Vancouver audiences
Added: (Fri Mar 28 2008)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
Vancouver audiences will be the first in the world to see an original dance performance by internationally renowned tap dancers Katharine Ponza and Stacey Hughes.
Katharine and Stacey are in Vancouver working closely with Jim Hibbard, famous for dancing in such films as Hello Dolly and Thoroughly Modern Millie. Hibbard is choreographing the original dance piece.
Dates and venue for the performances have yet to be finalized.
Katherine is based in the United States and Stacey in Canada.
Katharine is in Vancouver choreographing the "Stomp" style finale for the 2008 "I've Been Dreaming..." Canadian tour, for Write This Down Productions.
As well, she is teaching tap classes at Harbour Dance Centre in Vancouver during March and April.
Stacey is a member of the Source dance Company, and is on faculty as a tap teacher at Harbour Dance Centre. She is to play Velma in the upcoming production of West Side Story, put on by Royal City Musical Theatre at Massey Theatre in New Westminster.
Katharine and Stacey will teach tap workshops in Vancouver and Whistler during April.
Katharine is the dancer awarded a citation by the Mayor of New Jersey, USA, in 2007, for her outstanding contribution to the arts in dance.
She performed in New York City last month in the Dancers Responding to AIDS Benefit (A division of Broadway Cares: Equity Fights AIDS).
She was a featured performer in the American Tap Dance Foundation's New Choreographers Showcase in Manhattan.
She also teaches tap classes at Broadway Dance Center and Shuffles.
Aged 26, Katharine is a protégé of Germaine Salsberg, internationally renowned tap dancer, teacher and choreographer.
Katharine teaches and choreographs with Salsberg at Broadway Dance Center in New York City and performs with Salsberg's all-female tap company Les Femmes.
Katharine is also the assistant director and choreographer of the TapOle Dance Company in New York and she has been hired to choreograph such shows as "Fascinating Gershwin", to be seen throughout the US and Canada in 2008.
She has performed during the last three years in such productions as the New York City Tap Festival's "Tap City", Tradition In Tap NYC, Tap Extravaganza, and ATDF's Tap & Song, as well as an Off-Broadway run in TapOle Dance Company In Concert, and she has performed regularly on US television.
She has worked with many luminaries and legends of the tap dance and musical theatre worlds, including Randy Skinner (Broadway Choreographer - 42nd Street, White Christmas), Ayodele Casel ("First Lady of Tap"), Diane "Lady Di" Walker, the Late Professor LaVaughn Robinson, Harold Cromer, Miriam Nelson (who choreographed such greats as Doris Day and Rita Hayworth), The Silver Belles, and Gail Pennington (Broadway: 42nd St, A Chorus Line, Crazy For You).
Katharine Ponza began tap dancing in Sydney, Australia, where she grew up.
Stacey Hughes has performed professionally in many shows internationally, dancing in the Yukon, Indonesia and the Caribbean and spending a year dancing in Hong Kong with "Sixties Mania", a show band currently based in Las Vegas.
Stacey has recently moved back to British Columbia from New York City, where she has been dancing with TapOle tap company.
During her time in NY she has been a member of House of the Roses volunteer dance company, which focuses on teaching dance to under privileged children in shelters in Harlem and the Bronx.
Her television and film credits include: Kyle XY, "Impulse", feature film "Kank", Twenty Something Girls (NYC), "The Last Trapper", National Film Board of Canada.
Other credits include: Jean Anne Ryan Productions aboard Norwegian Cruise Lines, BC Lions Pride dance Team, Diamond Tooth Gerties.
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Media contacts: Katharine Ponza, US mobile: +1 212 729 0407, Canada mobile: +1 212 729 0407, email katharina_nyc@yahoo.com ; or Wal Baker, phone 612 9416 7111, email wal@wb-pr.com .
Katharine's biography and photos are at www.wb-pr.com/kp/kp.htm .