“Can we dance here?” This is the title of Soles of Duende’s signature work. But it’s also a question that the members of this percussion group often dance to pose.
“We’re constantly asking for it every week, every day, trying to book a rehearsal studio,” said tap dancer Amanda Castro. Often, the answer is no because there is a fear that tap and flamenco shoes will ruin the floors or that the group’s rehearsals will be too loud.
“People hung up on us,” said Castro, who is one of three members of Soles of Duende, along with flamenco dancer Arielle Rosales and Kathak artist Brinda Guha. “People cut me off in the middle of the word ‘flamenco’ — they say, ‘no, we don’t allow that, sorry’, click.”
Sometimes the problem is about logistics. Once, after appearing at a festival and finding that they were expected to dance on metal carpets, the performers dragged pieces of wood from a dumpster and built a makeshift floor.
It’s a particular cruelty that a dance floor is so elusive for Soles artists, because for them the floor is a beloved partner — the foundation that unites their three distinct cultural forms. “It feels like a sacred place,” said Castro, who, like many percussion dancers, considers herself both a musician and an instrument: In percussion dance, the sounds the body makes (slamming or stomping the floor, clapping hands) are valued alongside , sometimes even over how the body moves through space.
Despite its name, “Can We Dance Here?”, on stage this week as part of American Dance Platform showcase at the Joyce Theatre, he makes bold statements rather than polite questions as he places the three styles in a joyous and rhythmically engaging conversation.
Soles of Duende formed in 2016 when Rosales and Guha, already friends and occasional collaborators, were looking for a third percussionist for a show at Dixon Place. Guha didn’t expect to find anyone at Run the Night, a competition dominated by hip-hop and contemporary dancers, but one performer caught her eye: Castro, the only food artist there, who won first place for her performance to music by Vivaldi. (“Classical music slaps,” Castro said.) Later that night Guha texted Rosales: “Found her.”
The three dancers hit it off immediately, united by the commonalities between their forms—the reverence on the floor, the overlapping rhythms—and by what the three dancers themselves shared. Each felt a responsibility towards the tradition they carried. All were invested in what true collaboration could look like, hungry to push boundaries and ask tough questions of their forms.
“We didn’t know what we were going to make, but I remember this feeling of ease that we were going to figure something out,” Guha said. “I’ve never felt that way working with anyone else. I felt brave and fearless, like there were no inhibitions.”
After the Dixon Place show, they were inundated with questions about where to perform next. They hadn’t thought about it that much. Eventually they returned to Dixon Place, where they created an early version of ‘Can We Dance Here?’, which they continued to develop and perform over the years.
Soles’ work is more of a salad than a juice, Rosales said — “you can still see and pick out the ingredients” — more dialogue than fusion, and certainly not a loose mix of the three traditions, each deeply rooted in culture and history. Tap is an African American art form, flamenco originates from Andalusia in southern Spain, and Kathak is a classical dance from northern India.
“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel,” Castro said. “We’re not trying to create a Soles of Duende dance form or flamenco with tap shoes.”
He added: “You don’t have to sacrifice any part of yourself to have a conversation with someone else.”
Experimenting with the boundaries of their forms without “committing a fraud,” as Guha put it, requires a constant negotiation of each tradition’s distinct musical, cultural, and aesthetic values. Kathak and flamenco, for example, are often dramatic and project outward. both have extensive, coded upper body movements. Tap, on the other hand, can feel intimate and almost private. Dancers sometimes look down at their feet as they dance, faces lost in concentration, arms swinging naturally at their sides.
Flamenco can act as a bridge between Kathak and tap, Rosales said, as it has been influenced by both forms. “If I took off my shoes and did my feet, it would look quite like Kathak,” he said. “The tapping technique is different – the ankles are much looser, they lift their knees – but flamenco has adapted a lot of things from tapping.”
Traditionalists might see what Soles of Duende does as breaking the rules. The three dancers know this and try to be clear about the rules so they can think about when and how to break them.
During a recent residency at Chelsea Factory, they spent several days immersed in the three styles with the help of guest artists, exploring a folk dance from southern Spain called Sevillanas with flamenco singer Alfonso Cid. the story of the fake – a step considered the national anthem of tap dancing – with Jason Samuels Smith. and Kathak repertoire with Parul Shah.
“They want to go deep,” Shah said. “They really want to know the tradition they’re working in, to pay homage and respect to it.”
For now, that deepening includes the creation of a new track (which will premiere in 2025) and, they hope, a “Can We Dance Here?” recorded album. But what are they really dreaming about? “The infrastructure stuff,” Guha said. More specifically: their own track.