Tap dancing is making its comeback in Prince Rupert.
With lessons already underway at dance studios in the city to revive the art, it’s fitting a professional troupe will be arriving on the Lester Centre’s stage this upcoming Saturday night.
Danny Nielsen’s “Love.Be.Best.Free” tap dance and live musical jazz quartet show will be entertaining audiences this weekend and the group has a Rupert connection.
Member of the foursome Tosh Sutherland used to live in the coastal city and his parents even used to run the Lester Centre of the Arts in the mid-1990s to early 2000s.
Not only did Sutherland used to reside in Rupert, but Ryan Foley, another member of the tap dancing troupe, had a father who used to come to town and do choreography for many of the dancers here.
The 55-minute show is guaranteed to delight fans of love, dance and live music – not to mention pure athletic endurance, said Lester Centre general manager Crystal Lorette.
“Not only are you going to see tap dance at its finest, but you’re also going to be entertained with a quartet of musicians on stage and a vocalist. So they’re actually marrying music and tap, which is pretty difficult to do when you think about it because tap is so loud,” Lorette said. “This is the first time that this group is touring this piece and its pretty spectacular.”
The plot revolves around a man who gives tap up to be with a woman from another walk of life, at the risk of losing himself, then he faces the question of what is most important to his happiness.
Nielsen choreographs while Sutherland, Foley, Connor Denison and Johnathan Morin make up the male tap dancers, with Andrea Superstein as vocalist and Dean Thiessen on piano, Michael Rush on bass and Bonnie Northgraves on trumpet.
Tickets are available at the Lester Centre of the Arts and at Cook’s Jewellers and the show starts at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 25.