Katharine

USA (SANEPR.com) January 28, 2008 -- Internationally famous tap dancer and choreographer Katharine Ponza is visiting her hometown of Sydney after another busy year of performing in New York.

Katharine is the Australian dancer awarded a citation by the Mayor of New Jersey, USA, in 2007, for her outstanding contribution to the arts in dance.

While in Sydney visiting her family at Yagoona, she is taking a little time from her busy international schedule to teach the Shim Sham to aspiring teenage tap dancers.

Katharine is giving free instruction to the first 10 teenagers who arrive for the one-off dance lesson, while charging other participants $20 each.

The two-hour tap dancing master class will be at Newtown Theatre Rehearsal Room, 31 Princes Highway, St Peters, which is near the station, from 10 am to 12 pm on Wednesday, 30th January.

The class will be open to elementary and advanced tap-dancing teenagers aged 15 and up.

Katharine says, “The tap master class will focus on strong rhythm tap technique and performance style.

“I will be teaching the famous original Shim Sham routine, the universal tap dancers' dance, and also some Broadway or film musical choreography to finish with.”

Refreshments will be available. Bookings are not required.

Katharine was invited to join the dancers of “The Producers” musical for its tour of the United States last year but was unavailable. She hopes to have time to accept an offer to dance at the Jubilee in Las Vegas this year and expects to be free in coming months to tour Asia with the show “42nd Street”.

Aged 26, she is a protégé of Germaine Salsberg, internationally renowned tap dancer, teacher and choreographer

Katharine teaches and choreographs with Salsberg at Broadway Dance Center in New York City and performs with Salsberg’s tap company Les Femmes.

Katharine is also the assistant director choreographer of the TapOle Dance Company in New York and has been hired to choreograph such shows as “Fascinatin' Gershwin”, to be seen throughout the US and Canada in 2008.

Based in Manhattan, Katharine has performed during the last three years in such productions as the New York City Tap Festival’s “Tap City”, Tradition In Tap NYC, Tap Extravaganza, and the New Choreographer’s Workshop, as well as an Off-Broadway run in TapOle Dance Company In Concert, and she has performed regularly on US television.

She has worked with many luminaries and legends of the tap dance and musical theatre worlds, including Randy Skinner (Broadway Choreographer – 42nd Street, White Christmas), Ayodele Casel (“First Lady of Tap”), Diane “Lady Di” Walker, the Late Professor LaVaughn Robinson, Harold Cromer, Miriam Nelson (who choreographed such greats as Doris Day and Rita Hayworth), The Silver Belles, and Gail Pennington (Broadway: 42nd St, A Chorus Line, Crazy For You).

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Media contacts: Katharine Ponza, Sydney mobile phone 0405 544 076, Sydney landline 9241 1789, US mobile: +1 212 729 0407, email katharina_nyc@yahoo.com; or Wal Baker, phone 612 9416 7111, email wal@wb-pr.com .

Katharine’s biography and photos are at www.wb-pr.com/kp/kp.htm .