Music From The Sole is a tap dance and live music company that celebrates tap’s connections to Afro-Brazilian music and dance, and other influences across the African Diaspora. Jointly founded by Brazilian tap dancer and choreographer Leonardo Sandoval and American composer and bassist Gregory Richardson, the company strives to bring tap dance—America’s original vernacular dance—and its lineage to the broadest possible audience.
I Didn’t Come to Stay, a work for eight dancers and a five-piece band earned a spot on the New York Times’ Best Dance Performances of 2022 list. It explores tap’s connections to house, samba, Brazilian funk, and jazz. The artists embrace these forms’ shared roots across the diaspora and reflect on racial and cultural identity while celebrating the joy, strength, depth, and virtuosity of Black dance and music.
I Didn’t Come to Stay was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Mellon Foundation.
Commissioned by Works & Process at the Guggenheim, I Didn’t Come to Stay was created with the support of a summer 2020 Works & Process bubble residency at Kaatsbaan Cultural Park. This culminated in preview performances that were among the first outdoor performances permitted by New York State. I Didn’t Come to Stay was featured in a Works & Process at Lincoln Center video performance and received a Works & Process LaunchPAD “Process as Destination” residency at Catskill Mountain Foundation (2022), with additional residency support by The Yard, Jacob’s Pillow, and Chelsea Factory. I Didn’t Come to Stay is a National Dance Project Production Grantee.
Photo: Titus Ogilvie-Laing