COUNTERPOINT
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Counterpoint is a collaboration between pianist and composer Conrad Tao and choreographer and dancer Caleb Teicher. In their 70-minute concert, the duo explore the dichotomy of their different perspectives and artistic practices, expanding their individual expressive capacity through a collective experience.
The stylistically diverse music of Counterpoint includes the Aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Art Tatum’s demented stride piano, Arnold Schoenberg’s ironic take on the Viennese waltz, a delicate miniature from Tao and Teicher’s More Forever, and threading it all together, a work that bridges traditions, approaches, and styles — Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue.”
Since the work’s virtual premiere through the Library of Congress in Fall 2020, Counterpoint has toured extensively, touring over 30 cities across North America.
Tao and Teicher’s earlier work, More Forever, is a Bessie Award-winning, New York Times Critic’s Pick which was lauded for “constantly extending the sonic aspects of dance.” They are the first dance-music duo to be featured on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Series. -
“Tao and Teicher entered the space very casually and addressed the audience as if in their living room… By the middle of the program a new language had been glimpsed and understood, a new language of pure rhythm that could delight, excite, caress and alarm… The soundscape produced by the two was magnificent and enveloping. The complexity of their ‘language’ was astounding and riveting.”
“What set ‘Counterpoint’ apart from other performances was not just the musical talent and passion of both Tao and Teicher, but the seamless integration of humor, empathy, and shared experience with the audience. Their refreshing chemistry with one another and the crowd, as well as their distinctive interpretations of traditional pieces, created a back-and-forth dynamic that made the show feel that much more alive.”
“Talent and unpretentious pizazz are what the pianist Conrad Tao and the tap dancer Caleb Teicher delivered in the form of Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody In Blue’. Tao plays the hell out of the familiar score while Teicher plays it for vaudevillian comedy in the manner of Bill Irwin and Ray Bolger, keeping up with the rhapsodic shifts with an impromptu-seeming series of frisky responses: frantic Charleston, bouncy self-tripping, splits in which reaching the ground is an applause-earning triumph. But for all the joking around, Teicher never ceases to be musical.”
