2006 - Lynn Dally celebrated 25 years with the JAZZ TAP ENSEMBLE this past season in concerts at the Maison de la Danse in Lyon, the Joyce Theater in New York, and in major tributes to the late Gregory Hines at the Jazz Bakery and Ford Amphitheate in Los Angeles, as well as the Chicago and New York Tap City Festivals 2004. As dancer and choreographer, she has created a body of new tap dance works for the concert stage in worldwide touring with the Jazz Tap Ensemble.  She has appeared often with tap legends Honi Coles, Eddie Brown, Steve Condos, the Nicholas Brothers, Brenda Bufalino, Jimmy Slyde, and Gregory Hines in venues from Carnegie Hall to the Apollo.  Dally has received multiple choreographic grants from the NEA to create new work for the JTE over the past two decades, the Irvine Fellowship in Dance 2000 which led to the SOLEA project,  Guggenheim Fellowship in Choreography 2001 for cross cultural research ,and the City of Los Angeles (COLA) Fellowship 2002 for her latest work, the evening length concert titled Dancing Blues.  Her long list of commissions includes Ruby, My Dear for Seattle=s Pacific Northwest Ballet; The Moment for ETC/ Chicago Human Rhythm Project; Tribute: A Valentine to Tap Dance in the Movies for the Palm Beach Festival.  Now Adjunct Professor in UCLA=s Dept of World Arts & Cultures, Dally continues to teach and perform internationally.  She was honored to dance in NY with Bufalino & Sarah Petronio in Tap Divas as well as Tap City=s AMasters & Mentors.@  Her first dvd, SOLEA, explores cross cultural rhythms in new choreography for a quartet of gifted dancers in bharata natyam, flamenco, modern, and rhythm tap.   She will appear with the Jazz Tap Ensemble this summer in the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl, and next fall in the Salzburg Jazz Festival and again at the Joyce Theater in New York, Thanksgiving Week 2005.

 
Educated at the Ohio State University (B.A. 1963 Dance & French Lit) and Smith College (M.A. 1965 Theater & Dance), Dally was raised in her family=s dance studio in Columbus, Ohio where she received excellent training in tap from her father, Jimmy Rawlins. She was exposed to concert dance, music, and theater from early childhood and was privileged to see Peg Leg Bates, Al Minns & Leon James, Hines, Hines & Dad, Mia Slavenska & Frederic Franklin, Bea Lilly, Robert Goldsand, and many others before she was 12.  The world of modern dance opened for her at Ohio State where she pursued studies in Graham, Limon, and Cunningham technique (supplemented by many trips to their NY studios and summers at Conn. College/ American Dance Festival) and danced in original and repertory works by Doris Humphrey, Anna Sokolow, Viola Farber, and more.  She studied improvisation with Judith Dunn & Bill Dixon, and later, modern technique with Margaret Jenkins in San Francisco.  Dally made her choreographic debut in NY at Kauffman Hall 92nd St YMHA in 1964 on a bill with Gus Solomons, Jr and Alice Condodina.  After teaching and choreographing at Ohio State from 1966-71, she left the University life to pursue the dream of a dance company.  She initiated Lynn Dally & Dancers in San Francisco 1974, presented new work in NY 1975-77, and presented LD&D in Los Angeles for the first time in January 1977 at the Vanguard Theatre in West Hollywood featuring herself, Linda Sohl-Donnell, and Fred Strickler among others.  She returned to tap roots in the late 70=s and was fortunate to study with Eddie Brown and to be in proximity to Honi Coles for over a decade.  She is recognized for her role in the renaissance of tap dance in America and continues to innovate in the first concert tap company which she co-founded in 1979.  Currently, she works both in and out of the JTE format as she strives to explore new paths in tap, dance on camera, and tap documentaries.