Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 things you need to know about Shay Kuebler and Danny Neilsen's rhythm-rocking Figure Eights

Drum battles, tap tours, and Telemetry: the route to the latest Radical System Art show

By Janet Smith

Shay Kuebler (Photo by Joyce Torressq) and Danny Neilsen

The Dance Centre streams Figure Eights from January 25 at 5 pm to February 1

RADICAL SYSTEM ART’S SHAY KUEBLER has been burning up stages with tap innovator Danny Neilsen on and off for six years—a collaboration that’s taken them around the world and back.

In a new streamed event from the Dance Centre, the pair will offer a look at their new work-in-progress Figure Eights—a continuation of their rhythm-charged, form-fusing style.

Here’s a bit of background on this dynamic artistic duo. Note that both artists will appear in a pre-recorded Q&A with Dance Centre executive director Mirna Zagar right after sharing the work online.

#1

Kuebler and Neilsen’s first big Radical System Art production was 2017’s multimedia Telemetry, in which the tap virtuoso triggered everything from lights to multiple video projections to sound with his foot-generated rhythms. The group show was inspired by radio transmissions that send and receive information. It’s gone on to become the company’s most successful work, touring internationally—including the acclaimed White Bird Dance Series in Portland, the Suzanne Dellal Centre in Tel Aviv, and the Schritmacher Festival in Germany.

#2

Radical System Art’s artistic director Kuebler also trained in tap dance when he was young—as well as pursuing martial arts, hip-hop, and other forms that infuse his physically charged contemporary work today. He first met Neilsen at a tap festival in Edmonton in the mid-2000s, where they were both teaching and performing. That eventually led to Neilsen inviting Kuebler to be a part of his first full-length tap work, love.be.best.free., in 2014.

#3

Tap virtuoso Neilsen grew up in Calgary, where he’d often get dragged to his sister’s dance class; he took up tap so he’d have something to do. By his teens he was fully obsessed with the history of tap, and heroes like Fred Astaire, John W. Bubbles, and Gregory Hines. He went on to teach and perform with companies like M.A.D.D. Rhythms, Heather Cornell’s CanTap, Lisa La Touche’s Tap Phonics, and Decidedly Jazz Danceworks, taking on classes everywhere from DC Tap Fest to Brasil Tap Jazz. And like all the greatest tap talents in the country, he was hoofing it in the 2010 Winter Olympics opening ceremonies. He was also artist in residence for a couple years at the local Vancouver Tap Dance Society on East Hastings, overseeing its YouthCo company.

#4

Amid the program presented Monday, the pair will work with an iconic and mindblowing dual-drumkit piece: “Figure Eights” by Max Roach and Buddy Rich. Taken from the 1959 studio album Rich Versus Roach, it features the two star percussionists engaging in a frenzy of intricate beat battling. You can only imagine how Kuebler and Neilsen will match this with footwork.

#5

The Figure Eights stream will also play on the history of show-biz dance duets, and the duo’s own considerable chemistry as buddies and collaborators. As Kuebler recently told the Dance Centre blog, “We are also exploring and looking to build unique ‘novelty acts’ in this work, which references the ‘golden era’ of tap and the performing arts where acts found unique elements to make your performances standout. We want this work to highlight the relationship and dynamic that Danny and I have. Bringing forward our friendship, our sense of humour and the archetypes we hold – what we believe people perceive about us from a first glance.”

Find info and tickets here.

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