Acoustic Tap
“Al Desio’s tap dancing perfect, staccato and vibrant”
Houston Chronicle
“Jazzy, complex, unaccompanied routine that defined tap musicality...brilliant...absolutely dazzling.”
Lewis Segal, Los Angeles Times
“immediacy and excitement...fascinating”
Gillian Rees, Los Angeles Herald Examiner
“a stunning tap-out”
John C. Mahoney, Los Angeles Times
Acoustic Tap/Alfred Desio
Photo by Theodora Litsios
Repertory & Reviews – Selected Past
“When Desio dances, the focus never shifts to any part of the stage that does not embrace his personage...the expertise of a master.”
Jerome Robinson, Daily Trojan
“Desio is a tap dancer. His billing is The Dancing Fool. That and the news that he dances in front of an abstract painting painted by himself leads you to suspect a spoof. Not a bit. He’s very serious and very good. He works to Bach as well as jazz with every measure clean and alive and part of a larger pattern that grows ever more complex, like a Henry James sentence.
He closes by videotaping an improvised piece and then tapping out a counterimprovisation, live, as the tape rolls on the screen. This has the flair of a New Orleans jazz cutting contest, but there’s also something of the metaphor about it, a suggestion of certain conversations one has with oneself. Desio is the thinking man’s tap dancer.”
Dan Sullivan, Los Angeles Times
“The delighted fascination that seems to drive the Los Angeles-based Mr. Desio to explore these high-tech extensions of traditional tap also informs his...dancing. His intricate, deft footwork and his ease are compelling. But in the end it is the cagey exuberance of this leprechaun tapster that makes the work so enjoyable.”
Jennifer Dunning, The New York Times
“Desio displays an amazing range of pitch in his taps, devises delicate rhythmic variations dotted with slides, scrapes, and flutters. Getting faster and lighter, but not louder, the dancing and drumming whip their intensity into a galloping chase.”
Burt Supree, The Village Voice, New York
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This page was last revised on January 3, 2010.