Robert Burden

House

Saturday 19th   4:15pm-5:30pM

Robert Burden is a native Philadelphian. He received his BFA in jazz dance from the University of the Arts in 1988 having studied with LaVaughn Robinson and Germaine Ingram two of Philadelphia’s tap masters. Mr. Burden had been mentored by Mr. Robinson from 1983 to 2008 and continued to receive advice from him until his passing in 2008.

Mr. Burden is currently the Artistic Director of Tap Team Two & Company, Inc. and Professor of Practice in Contemporary Dance at Indiana University. Tap Team Two & Company is based in Philadelphia and tours the country for Young Audiences. Through Young Audiences Tap Team Two has traveled nationally, working for eighteen of the thirty-two Young Audiences organizations. In 2000 Tap Team Two and Company was awarded The Artist of The Year, the highest honor in the Young Audiences organization. With the company Mr. Burden has created 7 shows “Cyndi-Ella”, “With or Without Shoes”, An Evening of Tap”, “The Fifth Anniversary Concert”, “Steppin Through the Strings” (a collaboration with John Blake Jr.), “Winter Rhythms” (a company collaborative) and “Feet Talk”. In 1992, Mr. Burden completed the work Cyndi –Ella, a tap ballet of the fairytale Cinderella funded by the IPAP award from the Community Education Center, which received rave reviews, and began the company Tap Team Two & Company. Inc. Mr. Burden has been one of the spearheads for National Tap Dance Day in Philadelphia since 1996. Mr. Burden has performed as a solo artist in the Next Move Concert Series “Fifteen minutes at the Annenberg Center.

His performing and teaching skills have taken him abroad to Istanbul, Turkey, Taipei, Taiwan Holland, Germany and Prague, Czech Republic. Mr. Burden has had the pleasure of teaching the Czech Tap Champions from Prague and being a fly squad member of Riverdance, for which he studied in the Netherlands with the European Company and performed in Berlin, Germany. All of Mr. Burdens’ experiences have allowed him to start a long-term mentoring projects. He has completed a three-year project that went from 2001- 2004 called The New Orleans/ Philadelphia Cultural Exchange Program, which gave children from New Orleans and children from Philadelphia the opportunity to experience each other’s culture and study with some of the Masters of Tap Dance such as, Diane Walker, LaVaughn Robinson, Buster Brown, Jimmy Slyde and many more. This project allows Mr. Burden to achieve his artistic mission of keeping tap dance alive and growing through to the next generation.