RETURNING COMPANY MEMBER WRITE UP
About the Company:
Language of Rhythm is a Pre-Professional Tap Dance Company based out of DBSD, directed by Ella Steele. The aim of this company is to train in a pre-professional company environment, build community, and share work while honouring the historical roots of Tap dance.
What does being part of this company entail?
Passion and the interest in furthering your Tap dance education, being an accountable, responsible and mature student, building up your fellow company members, rooting for each other, and celebrating each others individual strengths as a company. Dancers will hones their unique voice alongside likeminded individuals. Dancers will work on tap technique, stamina, picking up choreography, improvisation, music theory, history, company repertoire (choreography), and historical repertoire. Language of Rhythm will teach you how to be a company member, collaborate, trade, build on ideas, and give you the resources to continue on into the professional dance world. We will provide a variety of performance opportunities to continue to build connections within our community. This may include competition, but also semi-professional performance opportunities, and community outreach. An exciting component of the program will include the opportunity to learn and work with live musicians. Interested dancers must audition for a spot in Language of Rhythm’s Pre-Professional Tap Company (see audition form and audition information). Open to all dancers, 5 years of tap training minimum recommended.
AUDITIONS ARE NOW OPEN FOR LANGUAGE OF RHYTHM SEASON 5
About the director:
Based out of Winnipeg, Ella Steele is realizing her dreams by travelling Canada, the United States, and Europe, training and gaining experience as a tap dancer. Ella began her dance career at DBSD at the age of two growing up training in all styles, assisting, and receiving mentorship from Barb Bottle and Mickaela Maxwell. Ella has been sharing her passion for dance as a teacher and choreographer for the past eleven years. Ella is also the director of Language of Rhythm (est. 2020), a pre-professional tap dance company with emphasis on community and education. In 2010, Ella met her mentor Ryan Foley and the world of tap dance fully opened up. She performed choreography created by Ryan Foley, was exposed to Toronto Rhythm Initiative, and began travelling to take classes from a wide variety of incredible tap dance artists and musicians around the world. Some highlights include being a part of Nicholas Van Young’s Institute for the Rhythmic Arts in Chicago in 2015, training with Nicholas Young and Michelle Dorrance, performing in shows presented by Toffan Rhythm Projects since 2016, travelling to Sweden three years in a row for the Stockholm Tap Festival, and training with Heather Cornell and Jim Donica in New York, summer 2019. Ella also had the opportunity to be on the faculty at TRI Youth Intensive in Winnipeg, 2019 and perform in “TRI Explores the music of Duke Ellington” and recently was on the faculty of TRI Youth Intensive in Vaughn, Toronto, 2022 where she choreographed a piece to be performed at the Toronto International Tap Dance Festival in the same year.
Ella has been a main cast member of Toronto based Tap Dance Company “Rhythm & Sound” since 2017 performing shows annually, most recently in their successful seven show run of “In Passing” at the Toronto Fringe Festival, produced and choreographed by Johnathan Morin and Cori Giannotta.
In 2021 Ella became an alumna of the School at Jacob’s Pillow, as one of the 20 tap dancers from around the world accepted into the Virtual Tap Dance Program. In this program, Ella trained with directors Michelle Dorrance, Derick K. Grant, and Dormeshia. Inspired by this experience, Ella and fellow tap dancer David Lafleur formed a Tap Dance collective (in)sight (@in.sightdance ) their debut work, Mirror/Water/Doorway was presented at the Toronto International Tap Dance Festival in August 2022 and remounted in Montreal as an official selection for Parcours Danse. Amongst many other projects, (in)sight is preparing to you Quebec in 2025 as a part of Les Danse Sur Les Routes “Futur Danse” programming.