Tap Dancer Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards Makes Dance Magazine Cover

Dance-magazine-tap Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards is featured on and in the May 2011 issue of Dance Magazine where she is praised for both her abilities and her influence on other tappers, like Michael Jackson:

"Her teacher, Paul Kennedy, had begun one-on-one lessons with Jackson, but when Kennedy fell ill, he turned Jackson over to Sumbry-Edwards. 'Michael was curious about tap dance,' she says. 'He loved rhythms. He was an absolute perfectionist. We would work for three hours on two bars!" She remembers how intensely he'd watch her dance. 'He would lay down in front of me like a kid and ask me to tap and tell me, 'Slower, slower, slower,' then 'Faster, faster, faster!' Then he'd look up at me and say, 'Can you show me how to do that?''"

Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards in The Rise and Fall of Miss Thang
[Source: Lavender House Films]

Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards has also performed in a variety of shows including Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk where she was the only female tap dancer and initially wore men's clothes. However, Savion Glover apparently came to his senses for the touring production and let her perform in women's clothing, including heels, which caught a lot of people's attention:

"'She totally revolutionized the field by reappropriating heels in a more contemporary way,' says [Michelle] Dorrance [who also describes her as the 'best female tap dancer alive']. 'Her movement, technical ability, and her sound in heels set her apart.' Sumbry-Edwards says of her choice to wear heels in Noise/Funk, 'I only wore heels where it absolutely made sense. But it blew people away. We were performing all over the world, from Los Angeles to Japan, and people would come backstage and tell me how amazed they were that I could do it in heels.'"

She and Michelle Dorrance recently appeared in the first evening-length tap performance at New York's Danspace Project which received great reviews.

Official Site: Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards