Avalon Rathgeb is a leading voice in contemporary tap dance and the Founder Artistic Director of Old Kent Road Dance and the London Tap Dance Festival. Her work is recognised internationally for its bold theatricality and commitment to expanding tap as a contemporary performance art form.
Avalon’s virtuosic three-part dance solo UnBound draws on her varied creative curiosity, musicality and top drawer address book to interweave questions of identity, gender and objectification with tap dance, video and text. First up is Bound, originally commissioned by the Claquettes Club in Liege, Belgium and loosely based on the stage life of nineteenth-century British Music Hall performer and male imitator Vesta Tilley. The second piece is Glory Hallelujah, a short dance film choreographed by Joshua Hilberman, a master pedagogue renowned in the field, filmed live at the Claquettes Club. The evening closes with the most contemporary piece I am Still Becoming, commissioned by TanzHaus Düsseldorf and directed by Hilberman, connecting tap dance with video, movement and text.
