You might not think that bebop and a push-broom have a thing to do with one another but in my world, they’re tantamount.

The two greatest challenges that I have experienced in my recent professional life have been performing Jason Samuels Smith’s suite, “Charlie’s Angels: A Tribute to Charlie Parker” and performing in the Off-Broadway production, STOMP.

Performing with Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards and Chloe Arnold in "Charlie's Angels".

“Charlie’s Angel’s” pushed the very edge of my technical capacity as a tap dancer (of 20 plus years) while STOMP (which involves no tap dance at all) introduced completely new techniques into my vocabulary of movement and musicianship. The physical and stylistic execution of the two are worlds apart. Yet the similarities between the two have everything to do with how I want to continue to grow as an artist for as long as I live.

Performing in STOMP with Shola Cole. Photo By Guido Mandozzi.

Truly succeeding at both involves honing an incredibly sharp musical and percussive ear as well as impeccable time. In my mind and practice, the sophisticated musical nuance, staccato and syncopation of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie’s bebop wear the same hat as the gritty layered grooves, canons and poly-rhythms executed throughout the segments in STOMP. Executing these things with high-heels on your feet or with a seven-foot pole in your hand (not-to mention doing it while looking like you belong with those things attached to your body) is the beautifully arresting or terribly awkward dance of it all. And, as with any piece of theatre, the charge of bringing an honesty to how abstract what you’re doing may seem – from tap dancing a horn solo to playing a plunger – is the icing on the cake.