Group seeks to engage through music, dance

By Cindy Card, Journal correspondent | Thursday, March 22, 2007

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The internationally known Rhythm in Shoes dance troupe is touring South Dakota and taking steps to leave an imprint on dance students across the state.

For 20 years, the Dayton, Ohio-based dance company has combined entertainment with education through outreach programs and workshops. The group’s style -- which they refer to as traditional Americana music and dance -- incorporates tap, swing tunes, hoedowns and clogging.

The ensemble is comprised of six dancers and three musicians who pursue the company’s mission to engage the world in music and dance. They work under choreographer Sharon Leahy and music composer Rick Good.

Rhythm in Shoes has toured 47 states as well as Canada, Japan and Ireland. Three of their six South Dakota stops will be in West River, which is a novelty said Ruth Brennan, State Dance Coordinator for South Dakotans for the Arts.

“Dance is so expensive and communities have a difficult time bringing dance in because of that,” she said. “Dance also has real specific requirements as to the type of floor they need. They can’t dance on concrete or on wood right on top of concrete. It’s too hard on their legs and feet. So there are not a lot of presenters.”

Eleven years ago, the South Dakota Arts Council worked with the regional agency, Arts Midwest, to help bring in dance by providing some of the money for it, she said. They bring in one nationally or internationally known company a year.

Rhythm in Shoes connects their performances with education programs through advanced, specialized training, or residencies. Residencies offer educators an interdisciplinary approach to the arts, integrating dance to enhance learning.

“The way we work it in South Dakota, and I think in most communities but not all, is to bring in a dance company, and part of the contract is to perform and also do outreach. That’s pretty standard,” Brennan said.

The objective of this residency is to give students a greater appreciation for the traditional dances based on Appalachian area and Celtic dance traditions.

The venue at the Matthews Opera House in Spearfish has the right stuff to offer the dance company, which performed there 11 years ago.

“We haven’t had much of a dance group as a performance in the past that I am aware of,” said Sue Gannaway, executive director of Matthews Opera House. “This is something new we’re trying.”

She said she has watched their video and is excited to present their show.

“It’s just a real moving, fast paced and exciting schedule of styles,” she said.

The group is scheduled to perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 31. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students and are available through the opera house box office.

The following day, the group will host master dance classes at Matthews Opera House at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.

“We have sent out invitations to all of the dance studios. The classes are open to any dance student at the intermediate and advance levels,” Gannaway said. The cost is $15 per class, which will last approximately 90 minutes, she said.

The other two stops West River will be in schools on reservations where dance styles and traditions will be exchanged and compared through a program called “sharing.” The company will perform their dance and then watch demonstrations of Lakota traditional dance.

“Sharon had the idea,” Brennan said. “They did a sharing program similar to this in Northern Minnesota two or three years ago. To push that even further, and with grant money, we are bringing in two humanities scholars to talk about traditional dance and cross-cultural connections and how that affects communities. They’ll be leading discussions with adults, teachers and students.”

Funding for the two speakers comes from grants from the South Dakota Humanities Council and the South Dakota Community Foundation.

The dance troupe will perform at Todd County School on the Rosebud Reservation on Monday, March 26, and hold a sharing outreach program on Tuesday, March 27. The Rhythm in Shoes performance at Takini School on the Cheyenne River Reservation will be on Wednesday, March 28, with a sharing performance on Friday, March 30. Both performances are open to the public, and both visits will include a humanities panel discussion. Brennan said this is the first time South Dakota Dance on Tour has worked with reservation schools on a statewide residency.

The scholars who will be at the two schools are Dallas Chief Eagle, a South Dakota hoop dancer and teacher, and Frank Hall, Ph.D., from the University of Indiana and one of the co-founders of Rhythm in Shoes.

Mary Little Sky, a Takini School assistant who works with talented and gifted students, said the school has arranged to have hoop dancers demonstrate that Lakota dance to the Rhythm in Shoes members. Both groups will critique each other’s styles and work to combine the two forms.

“They’ll come in and do a performance with us and a mini-workshop with the students,” Little Sky said. “We will have Dallas and some hoop dancers who will be working with them also. They will combine the styles and try to come up with a routine for our dancers. They will mesh them together somehow, during the end of the workshop.

“I think we’ll learn about the different dances that are out there besides the Lakota dance and the country dance. We’ve never had anything like that from the Riverdance. We will hoop dance with them as well. They will evaluate our dancers and we might come up with something for them,” Little Sky said.

Brennan said she is excited to see the troupe come to South Dakota.

“Expanding the residency to the reservations and incorporating humanities is an exciting addition,” she said. “It’s a different direction for the dance company.

“We try to get dance around the entire state in a variety of sites so as many people can see dance as possible,” Brennan said.