Tappers With Attitude Youth Ensemble

Tappers With Attitude Youth Ensemble (TWA) is a unique and multicultural group of young dancers on the cutting edge of the renaissance of tap dance since 1991. TWA is made up 25 dynamic dancers ranging in age from 10 to 18, representing 24 schools in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. The company is under the direction of Victoria Moss, with Assistant Directors Yvonne Edwards and Lisa Swenton-Eppard.

TWA's mission is to preserve and promote tap dance as a percussive art with an emphasis on the jazz tradition, and to foster a new generation to carry on the art. In addition to presenting works by nationally known tap artists, the company commissions new choreography by emerging tap choreographers, and encourages and assists TWA dancers to choreograph, thereby nurturing the creation of new expressions and voices in tap.

TWA has received two Metro DC Dance Awards for "Outstanding Youth Performance," in 2004 and 2007. The company performs regionally, nationally, and on stages throughout the Washington metropolitan area, and has appeared on local and national television. Performance highlights include: BlackRock Center for the Arts, Wolf Trap's Filene Center and Children's Theatre-in-the-Woods, Strathmore, the Scholastic National Arts Awards, the Smithsonian Institution, Carter Barron Amphitheater, Franklin & Marshall College, the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage, the New York City Tap Festival, Strathmore, the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, and the Chicago Human Rhythm Project. TWA was especially honored to have been selected to perform in the 1999 Kennedy Center Honors' tribute to Shirley Temple Black. In 2007, they were chosen by the Chicago Human Rhythm Project to take part in an All- American tap ensemble commissioned by the China Performing Arts Agency to perform at the Beijing International Dance Festival.

Tappers With Attitude Youth Ensemble was founded in 1991 by Renee Kreithen and Yvonne Edwards, and is a program of Tappers With Attitude, Inc., a 501(c)(3) performing arts organization based at Knock On Wood Tap Studio in Silver Spring, Maryland. Tappers With Attitude, Inc. is a recipient of a Cultural Alliance Business Volunteer for the Arts Organization award, and has been awarded grants from the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, the Dallas Morse Coors Foundation for the Performing Arts, the Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, the Prince George's County Arts Council, Target, and the Washington Post.

Victoria Moss, Yvonne Edwards, Lisa Swenton-Eppard (photo by Justin Allen)

Questions?

To learn more, or to discuss booking the ensemble, please contact Victoria Moss.