DrumatiX

The Center for Arts at the Armory (CAA) heats up the stage this summer with Feet Keep the Beat – a new annual multicultural percussive dance festival that CAA is both producing and presenting. CAA is thrilled to bring together vibrant and diverse communities of Flamenco, Irish, Tap, Kathak, Body Percussion and other flavors of percussive dance from around the world. The August 4 Feet Keep the Beat Festival Showcase Performance (doors at 7:00 p.m. | show at 8:00 p.m.) will include Ariaki Dandawate (Kathak), DrumatiX (Tap / Body Percussion / Drumming), Fourth Dimension (Tap), Khalid Hill (Tap), Yosi Karahashi (Flamenco), Anjali Nath (Kathak), and Jackie O’Riley and Rebecca McGowan (Irish). Performers and companies will dance a 15 minute set in their own percussive style, and the show will conclude with an intercultural grand finale jam with all of the artists. 

This will be the Boston area’s first ever festival of this type, and will include four days of classes and jams, culminating with the exciting Showcase Performance on August 4. Classes will be taught by the performing artists and companies participating in the August 4 Showcase, as well as Ian Berg (Tap & Musicality) and Anastasia Yendiki (Flamenco). There will be two free jams in the Armory Café, an Irish Jam on August 1 and a Flamenco Tablao on August 2.  

Anjali Nath ~Photo by Brooke Duthie

“Our goals are to bring people of all backgrounds and all ages with a love of dance, music, and percussion to the same space, produce high-caliber work, enrich our participants’ lives through enthralling performances, provide platforms for cultural dance that is not as widely recognized or appreciated, provide chances to learn and participate in workshops, build community, and support the growing performing arts scene in Greater Boston,” says Stephanie Scherpf, Arts at the Armory Co-Director / CEO, who also conceived of the festival and is playing a leading role in producing it. 

“I saw the Brooklyn, NY-based percussive trio Soles of Duende perform as part of CrashFest at House of Blues several years ago, and I thought, we have the same percussive dance communities represented by Soles of Duende in the Boston area, we just need to bring them together,” says Scherpf. “While we work on improving the Armory Performance Hall to better host dance, I think that we can do percussive dance well. I formed a group of the Boston-based percussive dance artists that I know and we started planning. We defined percussive dance as ‘dance that uses the feet or another body part to make percussive rhythms.’ In addition to Flamenco, Kathak, Irish, Tap, and Body Percussion, we also wanted to include Step, Gumboot and Flatfooting. The artists in those forms who we are in touch with were not available this year but we are hoping to be able to include them in the future.”    

Tickets and class registrations are available on the Feet Keep the Beat event platform. 

The Center for Arts at the Armory is located at 191 Highland Avenue, Somerville, MA 02143. To learn more  visit  https://artsatthearmory.org/, Facebook page, and  Instagram at @ArtsattheArmory.