Tapper Michelle Dorrance & Dorrance Dance to Return to The Joyce with MYELINATION

The Joyce Theater Foundation, Inc. will welcome back to its stage MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellow Michelle Dorrance and her internationally renowned company Dorrance Dance from December 19 to 31.

A critically acclaimed, superstar audience-favorite, Ms. Dorrance and her company of tappers return with a knockout world premiere and a newly imagined version of her 2015 hit Myelination.

Tickets, ranging in price from $10-$116, can be purchased at www.Joyce.org, or by calling JoyceCharge at 212-242-0800. Please note: ticket prices are subject to change. The Joyce Theater is located at 175 Eighth Avenue at West 19th Street. For more information, visit www.Joyce.org.

Bessie Award-winning Dorrance Dance, under the leadership of MacArthur Award-winner Michelle Dorrance, strives to honor the uniquely beautiful history of tap dance. Rather than stripping the form of its tradition, Ms. Dorrance and her company continue to push the limits of what tap can do rhythmically, aesthetically, and conceptually. Following two blockbuster Joyce engagements last year, Dorrance Dance returns to The Joyce with an exciting world premiere and the company's newest full-length work, Myelination.

Still untitled, Ms. Dorrance's world premiere is sure to highlight the astounding skill and exuberant energy that first put her show-stopping company on the map. Choreographed by Ms. Dorrance, the world premiere will feature unique improvisations at each performance by guest artists Jillian Meyers, Melinda Sullivan, and Josette Wiggan.

The company will close the evening with a reimagined and extended version of Myelination. Originally presented in 2015 as part of NY City Center's Fall for Dance Festival, this acclaimed work gets its name from the process through which the myelin sheath - a membrane that allows nerve impulses to move more rapidly - forms around nerve fibers. This quickly becomes evident through the rapid and almost twitchy nature of the choreography. Featuring 12 dancers, Myelinatonis set to original live music composed and performed by Gregory Richardson and Donovan Dorrance (Ms. Dorrance's brother) with eclectic-soul vocalist Aaron Marcellus.

Michelle Dorrance (Artistic Director/Choreographer) is a New York City based tap dancer, performer, choreographer, teacher, and director. A 2014 Alpert Award winner, 2013 Jacob's Pillow Dance Award winner, 2012 Princess Grace Award Winner, 2012 Field Dance Fund Recipient, and 2011 Bessie Award Winner, Michelle is the Founder and Artistic Director of Dorrance Dance/New York. Mentored by Gene Medler, Michelle grew up performing with the North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble and has since performed with: STOMP, Savion Glover's ti dii, Manhattan Tap, Barbara Duffy & Co, JazzTap Ensemble, Rumba Tap, Ayodele Casel's Diary of a Tap Dancer, Mable Lee's Dancing Ladies, Harold Cromer's original Opus One, Derick Grant's Imagine Tap, and Jason SamuelsA. Smith's Charlie's Angels/Chasing the Bird. Michelle's choreography has been featured on stages throughout the world as well as in a high-fashion short film for Tabitha Simmons' 2011 Fall line. Michelle embodies a true passion for teaching and strives to share this passion wherever she goes. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from NYU, played bass for Darwin Deez, teaches on faculty at Broadway Dance Center, is a Capezio Athlete and has been featured on the covers of Dance Magazine and Dance Teacher Magazine. Michelle wishes to credit the master hoofers from whom she studied in her youth for constant inspiration and influence.

Michelle founded Dorrance Dance in 2011. The company aims to honor tap dance's uniquely beautiful history in a new, dynamic, and compelling context; not by stripping the form of its tradition, but by pushing it rhythmically, aesthetically, and conceptually. Street, club and experimental dance forms-all of which are American dreams-awake to the sound of furious rhythms, and find their boundaries missing. Tap dance, America's most long-standing indigenous jazz vernacular, is here to receive its due. Dorrance Dance's inaugural performance garnered a Bessie Award for "blasting open our notions of tap." The company has performed at Danspace Project, The Kennedy Center, The Yard, Symphony Space, Jacob's Pillow, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Barcelona Tap Festival, The DC Tap Festival, The North Carolina Rhythm Tap Festival, The Soul to Sole Festival, and Beantown Tap Festival's "On Tap!"

The Joyce Theater Foundation ("The Joyce," Executive Director, Linda Shelton), a nonprofit organization, has proudly served the dance community for over three decades. Under the direction of founders Cora Cahan and Eliot Feld, Ballet Tech Foundation acquired and The Joyce renovated the Elgin Theater in Chelsea. Opening as The Joyce Theater in 1982, it was named in honor of Joyce Mertz, beloved daughter of LuEsther T. Mertz. It was LuEsther's clear, undaunted vision and abundant generosity that made it imaginable and ultimately possible to build the theater. Ownership was secured by The Joyce in 2015. The theater is one of the only theaters built by dancers for dance and has provided an intimate and elegant home for over 400 U.S.-based and international companies. The Joyce has also presented dance at Lincoln Center since 2012, and launched Joyce Unleashed in 2014 to feature emerging and experimental artists. To further support the creation of new work, The Joyce maintains longstanding commissioning and residency programs. Local students and teachers (K-12th grade) benefit from its school program, and family and adult audiences get closer to dance with access to artists. The Joyce's annual season of about 48 weeks of dance now includes over 340 performances for audiences in excess of 150,000.