Discussing the Legacy Tap Dance Concert: With Timea Wharton-Suri, Travis Knights, Lisa La Touche, and Donny Milwalkee
Live on CIUT 89.5 FM
Airing Date: August 31, 2022
Hosted By: Nicole Inica Hamilton
Featured Guest(s): Timea Wharton-Suri, Travis Knights, Lisa La Touche, and Donny Milwalkee
On this episode, our guests open up about the Legacy Tap Dance Concert which celebrates Black culture born from the Harlem Renaissance, with a genre-bending intergenerational cast led by Travis Knights, Lisa La Touche, and Donny Milwalkee. dance Immersion Curator & Program Director Timea Wharton-Suri, shares on the movement of the Legacy Series which examines the past, present and future of African Diasporic dance forms through reclamation, education, and celebration.
About Timea Wharton-Suri:
Timea Wharton-Suri is a curator, producer, and arts executive with decades of experience in dance. For most of her life she has studied, performed, taught, curated, produced, programmed, administrated, and advocated for dance in Canada. A serial entrepreneur, Timea has envisioned, created, launched, and managed several arts ventures across the country. She has worked with dance Immersion, Toronto Dance Theatre, TO Live, Canadian Stage, Ronald Taylor Dance, Ballet Creole, Higher Ground, Holla Jazz, KasheDance, Nova Dance, Dancemakers, Toronto Arts Council, TVOntario, Dancer Transition Resource Centre, Toronto Comic Arts Festival, and a number of independent dance artists. | Instagram: @move_with_timea
About Travis Knights:
Travis Knights is a Tap Dancer. Born in Montreal, Canada, Travis was introduced to the rich oral tradition of Tap by his teacher Ethel Bruneau (Harlem,NY) at age 10. He went on to travel the world spreading his love of rhythm across four continents, touring with Tap Dogs, Tapestry Dance Company, and the self-produced Tap Love Tour. He is the 2020 recipient of the Jaqueline Lemieux Prize for outstanding contribution to dance in Canada. Travis currently lives in Brampton, Ontario and hosts The Tap Love Tour Podcast, available on Spotify, Soundcloud and Apple podcasts (make sure to subscribe), featuring interviews of a myriad of inspiring Tap Dance artists. | www.travisknights.com | Instagram: @tkxperience
About Lisa La Touche:
A proud Calgarian and former New Yorker, Lisa’s credits include Broadway’s SHUFFLE ALONG receiving the Fred Astaire Award and the Actor’s Equity Award for Outstanding Broadway Chorus. TV credits include the 70th Annual Tony Awards and Amazon’s “Z, The beginning of everything”. She toured with Savion Glover’s production Stepz, as well as off-Broadway’s STOMP. She has taught at PACE University, New York University, The School of Jacob’s Pillow, University of Calgary and Decidedly Jazz Danceworks. Since 2010 she has run her own production and performance company, Tap Phonics, and has been commissioned to present for organizations such as The Brooklyn Museum, 92Y, Gibney Dance and Fall for Dance North. Lisa recently premiered her first film TRAX encompassing her journey back to Alberta while discovering important local Black history. She is the founder and host of Tap 4 The Ppl, a place for people to gather and learn more about Tap Dance. Her proudest achievement is being a mom. | www.lisalatouche.com | Instagram: @lisalatouche
About Donny Milwalkee:
From building Toronto’s live hip-hop show band scene, to not-for-profit music education, to owning a live music venue and working with festivals and events producers to innovate the concert experience, Donny Milwalkee has built a reputation for shaking up the status quo. As a drummer, he is known for creating deeply emotional arrangements, and this sensibility is prevalent in his live productions. Live credits include arranging the New York Chamber Society for JP Saxe, horns for Roc Nation artist Young Paris, and dozens of other live performances with orchestrations for horns and strings. Donny moves to create culture and community in every aspect of his work, which includes his showcasing band The Dirty B-Sides, trap-jazz collective game.set.trap, concerts at his restaurant Friday Roots, hip-hop brass band Bangerz Brass, his music school The BAR Institute, and more. Now based between Toronto and Halifax, he continues his work supporting the African Nova Scotian Music Association as a project coordinator, ushering in new ideas, initiatives, and programming to guide new pathways for the community and expanding throughout Atlantic Canada. | Instagram: @dmilwalkee
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