Free Outdoor Event Will Celebrate Duke Ellington and National Tap Dance Day This Month

Duke Ellington will be celebrated on Sunday, May 21 from 2-4pm with the return of a FREE, annual outdoor concert commemorating the jazz great's birthday. This year's event, at the Duke Ellington Statue, 5th Avenue and 110th Street in Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood, will also celebrate National Tap Dance Day, which takes place yearly on May 25, the birthday of tap legend Bill Bojangles Robinson.

Produced by Tony Waag, Executive Director of The American Tap Dance Foundation (ATDF) and Mercedes Ellington, CEO/Artistic Director of The Duke Ellington Center for the Arts, the afternoon concert will include performances by The Duke Ellington Center Big Band (musical director Eli Yamin) and a host of musicians, dancers and vocalists.

This year's lineup includes the Harlem Samba, a Brazilian percussion ensemble whose members are students, alumni and friends of the Frederick Douglass Academy, a public high school in Harlem. Vocalists Marion Cowings, Sharon K. Janda, Antoinette Montague and Nicholas King will perform, as well as tap dancers Michela Marino Lerman, Max Pollak and A.C. Lincoln.  Two students from ATDF's American Tap Dance Center, Shareef Coll and Kyleigh Vickers, will complete the program. Mark Mindek will appear on stilts.

"We're excited to be back celebrating 'The Duke' at his famed statue in Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood. Duke Ellington was a key figure in perpetuating the idea that tap dance IS music, and tap dancers are musicians that create music with their feet. Tap grew up next to its kissing cousin jazz. Tap and jazz are undeniably attached at the hip," said Mr. Waag. Duke Ellington was inducted into the ATDF International Tap Dance Hall of Fame in 2017.