“The Big Family Business: A Rhythm in Shoes Revival” is set for Saturday, Sept. 21, 7 p.m., at the Foundry Theater. General admission is $20, with youth/student tickets offered for $5. (Submitted photo)
Music, dance, connection with ‘Big Family Business’
- Published: September 18, 2024
Yellow Springs audiences are invited to come out to the Foundry next weekend for a night of music and dance performance — and to bring their own dancing shoes, too.
“The Big Family Business: A Rhythm in Shoes Revival” is set for Saturday, Sept. 21, beginning at 7 p.m. in the Foundry Theater.
The event will mark the first Yellow Springs performance of former Dayton-based dance and music company Rhythm In Shoes, a long-loved performance group not just in the Miami Valley, but all over the country, where they toured for 23 years.
Rhythm in Shoes was formed in 1987 by musician/composer Rick Good and dancer/choreographer Sharon Leahy, who are also partners. Over the following two decades, dozens of dancers and musicians weaved in and out of the company, whose performances were both rooted in American traditions of old-time music and clogging, and used those traditions as the alchemical foundation for original, contemporary creations.
The News spoke this week with Leahy, who said the “Big Family Business” is named such because family — whether by blood, marriage or mutual creative relationship — is the tie that binds those slated to perform.
“We’re all family, in one way or another,” she said.
Leahy and Good will return to the stage, along with their daughter, dancer Emma Young, and her husband, musician Linzay Young. Also returning are past Rhythm in Shoes collaborators and cousins Becky Hill and Beth Wright, with Wright’s daughter, Violet Wright.
New to the collaboration are several past and former members of locally based Mad River Theater Works, including its longtime former music director, Bob Lucas; his stepdaughter, local resident Chloe Manor; and Manor’s husband and current Mad River Theater Works Managing Director Chris Westhoff.
Leahy said audiences can expect a performance that feels akin to past Rhythm in Shoes shows, with traditional old-time music and clogging, as well as modern interpretations of those traditions.
“There’ll be traditional music and a lot of original music written in the old-time vein,” Leahy said. “And you can expect a lot of great, family vocal harmonies — I like to call them ‘blood harmonies.’”
The concert set, Leahy said, will last about 75 minutes — but she added that attendees will be welcome to get involved as well.
“This is not just a performance at you — we’re going to invite you to dance,” Leahy said, referring to a planned “barn dance,” in which all in attendance can get up and try their hands — and feet — at gender-neutral called dances.
“Everything will be taught, super simply, and they won’t be separated into ‘ladies and gents,’” Leahy said. “There will be some partnered dances — some squares, some circles, some lines — as well as some solo dances, and all levels of experience and all ages are welcome.”
As a long-time dancer whose New Jersey-based, Irish Catholic family was steeped in music and step dancing — and whose parents were competitive swing dancers in the 1940s — Leahy said she has long viewed music and dance as a balm for whatever ails. It’s pretty difficult, she said, to be sad or angry when you’re up and moving around with your neighbors.
“All you need is an open heart and mind and a willingness to get up out of your seat and move together with other people — it can be a kind of cure,” she said. “The more we use simple things like music and dance that can cure, I think, the better off we’ll all be.”
A passion for music and movement, and all their associated curative properties, kept Leahy and Good going after they made the tough decision to bid Rhythm in Shoes farewell 14 years ago. Leahy said the company’s disbanding was precipitated by the recession in 2007 and 2008, which made it difficult for independent arts organizations — even those as grounded and popular as Rhythm in Shoes — to continue.
Leahy recalled a conversation she had with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company founder Jeraldyne Blunden early in her career, in which Blunden gave her three pieces of advice: “Don’t spend your own money; don’t let it ruin your marriage; and don’t die for it.”
“I always kept those things in the back of my head,” Leahy said. “And I did spend some of my own money — sorry, Jeraldyne — but when it became so difficult in 2008 and the money for arts just dried up, I kept hearing her: ‘Don’t lose your marriage, don’t die.’ So we decided to go out on a high note.”
Rhythm in Shoes held its final concert at Dayton’s former CityFolk Festival in 2010, to an audience of thousands. But of course, Leahy and Good, and the folks that had been part of their creative family, continued to create: The pair are part of the four-piece group The Elements, with Michael and Sandy Bashaw, which shares music and dance sensibilities with Rhythm in Shoes. Leahy has continued to choreograph and perform for isolated projects, and Good has performed with the Washington Ballet, the Red Stick Ramblers and newly formed band The Howdy Boyz, with Leahy’s son Ben Cooper and their son-in-law Linzay Young.
Chris Westhoff said he’s the newest to the “family,” having married into a family already connected to Rhythm In Shoes.
“Bob [Lucas] and Rick [Good] go way, way back,” Westhoff told the News this week. “Rick is the one who gave Bob’s info to [Mad River Theater Works founder] Jeff Hooper in 1986. … So there’s a lot of shared history between the two companies — it’s not the same story, but it’s not dissimilar, in terms of trying to figure out how to remain vital and vibrant and connected.”
Leahy said the feeling of community — of connection — that runs through the history of both companies is what she hopes audiences will come away with after “The Big Family Business” engages with them next week.
“Connecting to the people who are on stage, connecting to the person who’s next to you — you might not agree on anything, but what you’re agreeing on is the joy, the sentimentality, the amazement of sharing a connection,” Leahy said. “I think, nowadays, that’s more important than anything.”
“The Big Family Business: A Rhythm in Shoes Revival” is set for Saturday, Sept. 21, 7 p.m., at the Foundry Theater. General admission is $20, with youth/student tickets offered for $5. Also available will be a “Bring ‘Em All” family ticket for $30. For more information, and to purchase tickets, go to http://www.bit.ly/BigFamilyBusiness24.
The Yellow Springs News encourages respectful discussion of this article.
You must login to post a comment.
Don't have a login? Register for a free YSNews.com account.
No comments yet for this article.