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News release
Attention Editor
26th January, 2008
ponza 1
Katherine's back
to teach us how
to Shim Sham
Internationally famous tap
dancer and choreographer Katharine Ponza is visiting her hometown of
Sydney after another busy year of performing in New York.
Katharine is
the Australian dancer awarded a citation by the Mayor of New Jersey,
USA, in 2007, for her outstanding contribution to the arts in dance.
While in Sydney visiting her
family at Yagoona, she is taking a little time from her busy
international schedule to teach the Shim Sham to aspiring teenage tap
dancers.
Katharine is giving free
instruction to the first 10 teenagers who arrive for the one-off dance
lesson, while charging other participants $20 each.
The two-hour tap dancing master
class will be at Newtown Theatre Rehearsal Room, 31 Princes Highway, St
Peters, which is near the station, from 10 am to 12 pm on Wednesday,
30th January.
The class will be open to
elementary and advanced tap-dancing teenagers aged 15 and up.
Katharine says, “The
tap master class will focus on strong rhythm tap technique and
performance style.
“I will be teaching the famous
original Shim Sham routine, the universal tap dancers' dance, and also
some Broadway or film musical choreography to finish with.”
Refreshments will be available. Bookings are not required.
Katharine was invited to join
the dancers of “The Producers” musical for its tour of the United
States last year but was unavailable. She hopes to have time to accept
an offer to dance at "Jubilee!" in Las Vegas
this year and expects to be free in coming months to tour Asia
with the show “42nd Street”.
Aged 26, she is a protégé of Germaine Salsberg, internationally
renowned tap dancer, teacher and choreographer.
Katharine teaches and
choreographs with Salsberg at Broadway Dance Center in New York City and
performs with Salsberg’s tap company Les Femmes.
Katharine is
also the assistant director choreographer of the TapOle Dance Company in
New York and has been hired to choreograph such shows as “Fascinatin'
Gershwin”, to be seen throughout the US and Canada in 2008.
Based in
Manhattan, Katharine has performed during the last three years in such
productions as the New York City Tap Festival’s “Tap City”,
Tradition In Tap NYC, Tap Extravaganza, and the New Choreographer’s
Workshop, as well as an Off-Broadway run in TapOle Dance Company In
Concert, and she has performed regularly on US television.
She has
worked with many luminaries and legends of the tap dance and musical
theatre worlds, including Randy Skinner (Broadway Choreographer – 42nd
Street, White Christmas), Ayodele Casel (“First Lady of Tap”), Diane
“Lady Di” Walker, the Late Professor LaVaughn Robinson, Harold
Cromer, Miriam Nelson (who choreographed such greats as Doris Day and
Rita Hayworth), The Silver Belles, and Gail Pennington (Broadway: 42nd
St, A Chorus Line, Crazy For You).
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Media
contacts: Katharine Ponza, Sydney mobile phone
0405 544 076, Sydney landline 9241 1789, US mobile: +1 212 729 0407,
email katharina_nyc@yahoo.com;
or Wal Baker, phone 612 9416 7111, email wal@wb-pr.com
.
Katharine’s biography and
photo are at www.wb-pr.com/kp/kp.htm
.
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