Experimenting with Sonic Dance Boundaries in a Sandbox

By Sharon M. Chin

To watch and hear Caleb Teicher move, whether as a singular performer or amid other pairs of nimble feet, is to be entranced. With lightning quick feet, unexpected rhythms, an inviting gaze, and a striking white streak of hair amid a sea of jet black curls, Caleb mesmerizes his audiences with his suave and rhythmic tap dancing. He has commanded rapt attention since his debut year in 2011, when, at just 18 years old, he won a Bessie Award for Outstanding Individual Performance for his work with Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards. Since his emergence on the stage, Caleb Teicher has been heralded as “one of the brightest lights in tap today,” and as a dancer “with a will and a way.”

Today Caleb’s identity leads with his talents as a choreographer and and he has most recently been nominated for the Bessie 2019 Outstanding Breakout Choreographer award. His latest work, More Forever, presented initially at the Guggenheim Museum New York, reflects his love of experimentation and collaboration. Caleb’s journey into choreography began as “a creative habit that he adopted almost immediately as a tap student as a way to practice and reflect upon his tap dance lessons.” Caleb recalled “six months into learning tap, as a 10 year old boy intruding amid 16 year old teenage girls, choreographing a solo 3-minute routine with no place but his brain to perform it in.” And while a boyish Caleb may have silently stood in the back of that classroom, terrified of learning amid a teenage girls’ world, Caleb experienced deep resonance as a dancer and found choreographing to be fulfilling. In 2015, Caleb formalized his role as a choreographer in founding Caleb Teicher & Company, a vessel for his choreographic vision alongside collaborators. His choreographic repertoire embodies tap, lindy hop, and vernacular jazz traditions, but his other life experiences—from Appalachian flatfooting, Horton modern technique, to training as a drummer—also steep into his work. His choreography, presented at the Joyce Theater, Jacob’s Pillow, and other institutions, has been received enthusiastically to-date, including garnering Dance Magazine’s 2016 “Best Emerging Choreographer” award.

Caleb describes his current choreographic process as being driven largely by intuition. He begins with what his body feels compelled to do- “a dancer’s instinct”- and then follows with movement, flow, energy, and circumstance.

Caleb’s choreography, strongly influenced by jazz’s receptiveness to improvisation, is also defined by its belief in openness and collaboration. Holding a high dislike for micromanagement and dictated directorship, Caleb places deep trust in his team and “leaves space for his collaborators to contribute.” Caleb notes he’s “not very regimented” and Caleb actively fights against “precrastination- the act of completing something too quickly, when taking more time would result in a better outcome.” Caleb fundamentally believes that “good collaboration is messy” and, likening it to paint, where one can’t pull apart the red and the blue within the purple, he notes good collaboration produces work that is enmeshed. Caleb’s latest piece, More Forever, is a collaboration with composer and pianist Conrad Tao— two young artists maturing into their talent. The choreographer and the musician, who met in 2011 through the National Young Arts Foundation in Miami, Florida, use all the sounds produced in the room, including sounds created by the dancers, to alluringly write music with dance. Their collaboration is an acoustic experiment abetted by the traditions of sand dancing— to push the sonic aspects of dance theater.

Presented at the Guggenheim in January 2019, More Forever sets up seven American vernacular jazz dancers (tap and lindy hop) against the sounds of a piano and electronics-based score. The score is inspired by Caleb’s footwork— an improvisational conversation begun over email where Caleb would record a tap rhythm. Conrad, upon hearing that recording, would than respond with melody and composition. The resulting More Forever is rhythmically complex. We hear sounds that originate from tap dance, a dance form that intentionally produces sound, the piano -an instrument uniquely capable of being polyphonic, and electronics. Conrad and Caleb further push the sound and rhythm boundaries with the introduction of sand, allowing for the sustained sound of a foot being dragged across the floor, and a literal sandy playground for experimentation. As a composer, Conrad described this collaboration as “an opportunity to create music comprised of all the characters [sounds] in the setting,” to allow his “composition” to reflect that setting, and to eventually “collapse all the boundaries.”

The acoustics of More Forever are gripping and, at times, unexpected. The gritty sound of a foot sweeping against sand. The heart-quickening tap of stomping and shuffling feet as dancers move bodies and legs in circles, diagonals, and parallel lines on a hard wood stage. Cool claps and quick finger snaps— the sound byproducts of dancers in motion as they make eye contact with each other and the audience. A hypnotic electronic piano phrase, inspired by the sand-tapped rhythms, repeats itself over and over again. The acoustics can also be unexpected— from the timbre of a tiny toy piano that accompanies a trio of Supremes-evoking tappers to the melancholy voice of a lone Caleb singing “I thought we’d go see the show” from the topmost stage corner. There are moments of dissonance and discomfort as Conrad erotically reaches inside the piano to play the strings. And, when all seven dancers take the stage, there is tremendous percussive power as they sand-dance, tap, and lindy hop frenetically. All of this combines to mesmerize the viewer acoustically.

If More Forever grips you with its sounds, the visuals are equally compelling. If we begin with a lone pianist and soon a lone tapper in one corner of the stage, the movement builds with other individuals arriving and announcing themselves with differing cadences until all four corners of the stage are occupied and a uniform rhythm fills the air. While the sand-dancers may move more or less individually, Caleb eventually introduces a partnered pair, Evita Arce and Nathan Bugh. These two, renowned international Lindy Hop dancers, invite us to release our expectations of Lindy Hop as they intertwine in a series of molinetes, slow dips, and drags as clumps of sand fall from their hands. Leaving behind swing rhythms and focusing on just connection, their shadows add their shapes to the dance. Revealing Caleb’s intent of creating space for his collaborators, Evita, with her hands placed on her heart, expresses that this particular movement is “improvised each time. Caleb’s choreographic approach allows us, each individual dancer, the freedom to experiment and play, even though I may have desperately wanted Caleb to tell us what do.”

Caleb describes his current choreographic explorations as also focused on creating work that lives beyond a specific body- whether his own or that of his performers. Reflecting on his own roots as a musician, Caleb notes timeless standards are defined by their ability to remain recognizable and evocative despite interpretation by other performers. Breaking out into song, Caleb charmingly sang the jazz standard All of Me, changing his timbre and pacing, to showcase how despite the interpretation, the song remained recognizable and cathartic. And Caleb, as he developed More Forever, with different casts over the course of a year, was able to gain further clarity on the essential elements of this piece. Caleb’s 2018 jazz piece Meet Ella is another testament to “creating dance that lives beyond one specific performer and one rigid set of moment.” Meet Ella, originally imagined for and set to two specific male performers, was recently transitioned to two women (Evita Arce and Macy Sullivan). Caleb “probed on what lived, what died, what was essential, and what was negotiable about the work.” Caleb interrogated how gender change and individual agency, from a smile to a nuanced flourish, altered the piece and then drew choreographic boundaries to allow the piece to remain Meet Ella.

More Forever continues to build momentum until all seven dancers take the stage. The formations weave between seven individuals soft shoeing it out to two partnered pairs lindy hopping glibly. The partnered couples then exchange partners, roles, and energy, with both traditional and same gendered partnering, as the three tappers continue to drive percussive rhythms on stage. In an enchanting moment, Brittany DeStefano, holding center stage amid this frenetic energy, leaps forward toward the audience three times, releasing a glimmering swirl of sand from one hand at the height of each jump. Raptly we listen and watch- the individuals and the collective.
All the sounds of More Forever are produced within the room, including the sound of silence. As the piece alternates between pauses and frenzy, with tension and release, and with the trickling of sand, we are reminded of the passage of time. In the end, More Forever, with its stroked and percussive footwork, stretches and enticingly holds our sonic imagination. The piece leaves us with imaginative and stretched rhythms, silence, and to our own sonic contemplation.

More From Caleb Teicher

Where Can I Watch This Artist Next: More Forever will play at Jacob’s Pillow, July 24-28, 2019. Other works, “spirited Lindy hop–inspired Meet Ella, set to the music of Ella Fitzgerald; Small & Tall, witty, jazz-inflected duets performed to live music; and Bzzz, featuring rousing tap choreography and the irresistible rhythms of an onstage beatboxer” will be shown at Lincoln Center Out of Doors August 2, 2019. Follow Caleb Teicher & Company for additional performances.

Who Are You Watching: “I’m interested in the lindy hop work of Gaby Cook and her new company, Wild Rhythm. From a tapper’s perspective, I’m following Lisa LaTouche and Dorrance Dance . In the contemporary dance scene, I’m looking at John Heginbotham, Camille A. Brown, and Kyle Abraham.”

How has New York City Shaped Your Work: “I am inspired by the people of New York- more than by the place itself. There’s such a wide selection of talented people to work and collaborate with. I have a selection of talented musicians and a sea of dancers and am not working with a company of one. The level of talent is unparalleled.”

A Dance Genesis Moment: “I got into lindy hop unintentionally. I was in a tap dance class and saw two people struggling in the back of the room and I went to assist them. They turned out to be two prominent international swing dancers who set me up with Akemi Kinukawa for my first 5 lessons. Even with just a swingout, tuck turn, and a circle, I thought it was so beautiful, amazing, and complicated.”

One Fun Fact: On his signature white streak of hair amid a sea of jet black curls, “Is this my natural hair? No, but I’ve been rocking it for 2.5 years and its now a part of my signature look. I guess I’m going to wait until my hair turns white before I go full reverse.”

Published: July 7, 2019