TDRN UK Online Talk Series: Contextualising Buddy Bradley in British Film

Jul 26, 2023

Tuesday 29 August 2023 19:00 – 20:30 BST | 11:00 PDT | 14:00 EDT | 20:00 CEST £6 / PWYC TICKETS

Annette Walker presents a follow up to her initial March 2021 presentation about a forgotten choreographer of British musical stage and screen, Buddy Bradley.

Buddy Bradley worked extensively in British musical theatre from his arrival in London in 1930 until he returned to New York in the 1960s. He made significant contributions to dance practice, choreographed for BBC productions and was the first credited black choreographer of British musical film, yet his work is barely acknowledged in British dance history. Buddy’s career began in New York where he coached many performers including Fred and Adele Astaire, Eleanor Powell and Lucille Ball. In London, he ran a dance school for over twenty years and was known as the number one coach to the stars including John Mills, Audrey Hepburn and Bruce Forsyth but his most significant work was with the stage and film star, Jessie Matthews.

Annette Walker’s presentation looks at a selection of Buddy Bradley’s surviving work in British musical film and the social and historical context of his life and career as an African-American choreographer in Britain. Uncovering Bradley’s dance work in film requires navigating negative racial stereotypes and tropes of black people that were prominent in Britain during the mid-twentieth century. The presentation raises questions about how racialisations in theatrical productions impact viewing tap dance and the work required to undo the “invisibilisation” of Black contributions to British musical theatre and dance history.

Biography: Annette Walker MA BSc (Hons) DipHE

Annette is an accomplished, multi-talented performing artist who has appeared in a variety of theatre, film, television and concert productions. Her tap dance features include the BBC Proms 2019 Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music concert at the Royal Albert Hall, Swinging at the Cotton Club (UK tour) and the short film, Dateleap (2022). As an aerial circus artist, she was one of the Mary Poppinses in the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony.

Annette is the founder and the musical director of the band, Rhythmaticians, and headlined the Marsden Jazz Festival with her new tap dance show in 2021. She also works as a music director and musician for other dance, music and theatre productions with credits that include Swing Sister Swing (UK tour 2022), Myke Masters Band and Sandi Toksvig’s Mirth Control at the WOW Festival at the Southbank Centre.

Annette’s passion for integrating music and dance continues off stage as a researcher and educator and she has taught at many dance and music institutions including, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, Royal Academy of Dance, The BRIT School, National Youth Jazz Collective and Tomorrow’s Warriors. She led the Renegade Stage (tap improvisation workshop) at the London Tap Jam for over 15 years, and is currently a co-director of Tap Dance Research Network UK. Annette is a fully funded AHRC PhD student researching the influence of African American choreographer, Buddy Bradley, on the British musical stage.

TDRN UK Online Talk Series – Moving the Music: Duke Ellington’s Dancers with Allana Radecki

Mar 9, 2023

Tuesday 16 May 2023 19:00 – 20:30 BST | 14:00 EDT | 11:00 PDT | 20:00 CEST £6/ PWYC

Book here

Shaped by the tidal forces of the New World, jazz music and dance are rooted in the Africa where the arts form a unified complex of interlocking relationships. The great composer and bandleader, Duke Ellington, exhalted the African aesthetic tradition, consciously aligning his music and imagination to serve all forms of jazz dance, throughout his long career. Known to keep “one eye on the audience and one eye on the act,” he most frequently called upon tap dancers to “step inside” his music and deliver a range of styles, percussive color and visual excitement to performance. A great collaborator, just as he practiced communal composing with his musicians, he also worked directly with dancers as allied artists. This presentation will share stories of these collaborations gleaned from oral histories and autobiographies of the jazz dancers who moved his music including: Bunny Briggs, Brownie Brown, Peg Leg Bates, Howard “Stretch” Johnson, Alfredo Gustar, Bessie Dudley, Talley Beatty and more.

About Allana

Artist, educator and performer, Allana Radecki has a BA in Fine Arts and MA in African American, African Diaspora Studies from Indiana University. Her research focuses on the interlocking roots and culture of jazz music and dance through autobiography and oral history. Her current book project examines the multi-faceted relationship between Duke Ellington and jazz dance, with an emphasis on tap dancers. A noted teacher of Hatha Yoga, Rhythm Tap and Modern Dance since 1986, she has taught thousands of classes to thousands of people of all ages. As a jazz tap dancer, Allana loves to improvise and also explores West African and Afro- Brazilian percussion including many years with Women of Mass Percussion and five seasons with the Indiana University Brazilian Ensemble.

TDRN UK Online Talk Series: Footwork my Life in Dance with Leela Petronio

Feb 10, 2023

Tuesday 28 February  2023 19:00 GMT | 11:00 PT | 14:00 EST | 20:00 CEST £6 / PWYC Tickets

Sarah Petronio, the privileged partner of the legendary Jimmy Slyde, is one of the leading female pioneers of Jazz Tap Dancing and a major player in the revival of the art form. She has broken new grounds in the international jazz world, taking her unique style of Jazz Tap Dance improvisation into the most important jazz clubs and dance festivals worldwide. 

The book Footwork – My Life in Dance features Sarah’s life and work. It takes the reader on a journey into the history of tap dance. She shares her methods of teaching, her thoughts on improvisation, mentoring and how one can discover the dancer within. With contributions from leading tap dancers, musicians and producers.

Sarah’s daughter, LeeLa, joins the TDRN UK Online Talk Series to discuss her mother’s groundbreaking career in jazz tap dance and editing Sarah’s book, published in May 2022, with a rich archive of photography by Peter Petronio.

SARAH PETRONIO

Jazz Tap Artist Sarah Petronio was born and raised in India. She immigrated to New York at the age of 19 and later moved to Paris, France, where she became the dancing partner of Tap Legend Jimmy Slyde in the ’70’s and 80’s. Sarah has shared the stage with Gregory Hines, Honi Coles, Steve Condos, Lon Chaney, Chuck Green, the Nicholas Brothers, LaVaughn Robinson, Savion Glover, Brenda Bufalino, Dianne Walker, Lynn Dally, Acia Gray and many other very talented tap dancers. A master teacher and performer and a major force in introducing rhythm tap to French audiences, Petronio founded the Gît-le-Coeur Cultural Center, the Paris Tap Dance Company and the Tap Dance Department of the American Center in Paris.

LEELA PETRONIO

Franco-American, LeeLa Petronio comes from the lineage of Rhythm and Jazz Tap through her mother (Sarah Petronio, privileged partner of the legendary dancer Jimmy Slyde). She develops projects around percussive dance drawing on the determining influences of her career – jazz culture, tap dance, hip hop dance, STOMP. Today she wears several hats – dancer, choreographer, producer, teacher, administrator, performer – sailing between different worlds in France and internationally.

Full Bios here