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• Michela Marino Lerman

From:

• Performing Arts Encyclopedia
• Tap Dance America

Dates: 1986-
Birth Date: Jun 12, 1986

Place of Birth: New York, New York

Michela Marino Lerman, jazz tap dancer, choreographer, and the only woman of her generation to be inducted as a Lifetime Honorary member of the Copasetics, the fraternity of mostly black male tap dancers that was founded in 1949 in memory of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, was born in New York's Greenwich Village to parents Theresa Marino and James Lerman. Her tap pedigree is sterling, as she studied with the most venerated rhythm tap masters of her time. Tap study began at the age of six with Bonnie McCleod at Woodpeckers dance studio and continued with Robin Tribble at the Chinese Cultural Center, Susan Hebach at Dick Shay's, and, from age eleven on, with Savion Glover, Baakari Wilder, and Jason Samuels Smith at Broadway Dance Center. "It was about steps that were powerful and loud and commanding," said Lerman about Smith, who focused on elements of tonality that he had gotten from Steve Condos. "What Jason was doing was so much a part of Steve's warm up. He was playing the floor, getting all the sounds out, and that's a big part of what I do-- sing the rhythms, try to make my feet sing."

In 1997, the eleven-year-old attended her first Sunday-night tap jam at Swing 46, hosted by James "Buster" Brown, and he became her most influential teacher and mentor. The eighty-four-year-old rhythm-tap master was known for his speed, precision, and heartwarming wit. He had been a member of the Three Aces, the Speed Kings, Brown and Beige, and the Chocolateers in the 1930s and 1940s; had danced with Duke Ellington and all the big Swing bands; and he was the only dancer invited to become a member of both tap-dancing fraternities, the Copasetics and the Hoofers. In the 1990s, Brown was one of the most beloved teachers in the tap community. "Buster was a grandfather to me, always giving advice and moral support," said Lerman. "When he taught you, he grabbed your hand and said, ‘That's your way, that's how you do it.'" Brown taught Lerman his signatures works-- "Laura," "Fascinatin' Rhythm," "Just You Just Me." More importantly, says Lerman, "He pushed me to do whatever I wanted, and was always supportive. He loved it when I danced hard and fast." Brown remained an ardent supporter of Lerman, even through sickness, living to see her win the Harlem Jazz Festival's Hoofers Challenge two years in a row (2001, 2002). Brown died just days before his eighty-ninth birthday (on May 5, 2002), with Lerman, just about to turn sixteen. Gregory Hines brought her back to her feet and became her next mentor. He taught her to breathe, and to understand how silence was as important as the sound. As a rhythm tap dancer who described his art as "improvography, Hines also instilled in Lerman the importance of improvisation-- the spontaneous creation of a percussive statement in performance. Lerman appeared with Hines in 1992 on the "Put on Your [Tap] Dancing Shoes" episode of Sesame Street. Then Hines died suddenly and unexpectedly (on August 9, 2003, at age 57), leaving Lerman and the entire tap community devastated. LeRoy Myers, one of the last of the living Copasetics (formerly of the tap team Pops and LeRoy) stepped in to teach her. Myers lived long enough to officially induct Lerman, on June 12, 2003, as the only woman (since Sandra Gibson in 1949) into the Copasetics fraternity as a Lifetime Honorary Member. Myers' death (on April 26, 2004), forced the near-seventeen-year-old dancer to more pointedly set her goals. "Somehow, I had conveyed that I had love for this, that I had no bad intentions, that this was my soul, the only way to express my utmost thoughts," said Lerman, who dedicated herself to preserving and evolving the black rhythm tap tradition that had been bestowed upon her.

Lerman was quickly recognized as one of the most cutting-edge dancers of her generation, becoming a leader of the downtown New York tap community. In 2000, she appeared in Roxane Butterfly's Beauteez ‘n the Beat, billed as "The first tap and hip-hop show ever created by women"; it featured break dancers Honey Rockwell and Colleen Miss Twist, saxophonist "Sweet" Sue Terry, and drummer Bernice "Boom Boom" Brooks. That same year, she was the featured dancer in From Hoofin' 2 Hittin', billed as an electrifying show of tap dancing, drumming and unconventional choreography. In 2002, Lerman appeared with Jennifer Holliday in Nothing Like A Dame, toured with the Cab Calloway Orchestra, and was featured in 21 Below! The World's Best Tap Dancers Aged 21 & Under, produced by the New York Committee to Celebrate National Tap Dance Day at New York's Town Hall. One of the two solos- she performed was to the Duke Ellington classic "Come Sunday," originated by Bunny Briggs in the "David Danced Before the Lord" section of Ellington's Concert of Sacred Music (which premiered 1965 at Grace Cathedra, San Francisco).

In 2006, Marino conceived, directed, choreographed, and performed in AM+Bu$h+ED. Commissioned by downtown New York's Dixon Place, the show featured tap dancers Claudia Gomez Vorce, Hannah Leah Dunn, Masato Nishitani, Warren Craft, Luke Hawkins, Joseph Wiggan, Cikako Iwahori, and Hank Smith; musicians DJ Supreme and Sharp Radway; and poets Mswati Elihah, and Kesed who spoke to and behalf of members of the young generation. "No matter what you do as a young person today, you're somehow ambushed by the mainstream corporate view on what you think a young person should be," Lerman stated about the work, wishing to "ambush audiences" into seeing that young people care about the world. That show, and several other performances by Lerman, prompted Jane Goldberg in 2008 to name Michela Marino Lerman in Dance Magazine as "One of the 25 Best Dancers to Watch." At age twenty-one, she was a quadruple threat, not just an ace hoofer but also a choreographer who sang and directed. In 2009, at downtown New York's Judson Memorial Church, Lerman conceived, choreographed, and directed another tap original, Tapsploitation, which told the story of a young man and woman's search for meaning and personal identity in urban America in the 1970's, and following the characters on their journey through the streets of the American city, to the jungles of Vietnam, and back to a dawning awareness of the path to self-understanding. In 2010, Lerman founded the Tap Messengers, a modern jazz ensemble of cutting-edge dancers celebrating and organizing themselves around the hard-bop jazz performanes of Art Blakely's Jazz Messengers, known for its ensemble writing and dynamic improvising solists. She also took the lead in hosting tap jams, with an ensemble of jazz musicians, at such downtown New York venues as Smalls and Fat Cat; the tap jams have been a magnet for young dancers, many of them international, learning the language of jazz.

"My desire is to bring my generation together, to create something and pull something more out of my hat, say Lerman about the art form, adding that she wants to stay versatile: "I've done high heeled and low heeled, flat and arched; I like both and I think that's the one up-- because women can kill it, and dance as good as a man, and look good doing it."

[Source: Constance Valis Hill, Tap Dancing America, A Cultural History (2010)]