Boston-based tap company Subject:Matter has made bold musical choices since its inception in 2015, choreographing to music by everyone from Fela Kuti to Herbie Hancock. But its latest offering, a studio album entitled With Far Hand (out now on music streaming platforms), features songs that no one has ever heard before. That’s because director Ian Berg co-composed and arranged them alongside drummer André Sudol. The two met at the Berklee Global Jazz Institute, where Berg earned his master’s in music in 2023.
Notably, Berg is the first tap dancer to graduate from Berklee College of Music. But the Chicago native isn’t the first tap artist to produce a jazz album. It’s a genre that includes the legendary Baby Laurence’s 1977 record Dancemaster, and 2018’s New Change, by tap standout Sarah Reich. With Far Hand is Subject:Matter’s sophomore album, following last year’s Songbook, and also exists as a full-length show, in which Berg performs with longtime dance collaborators Jackson Clayton and Samantha Emmond.
I love the sound of tap dancing. I feel like a lot of musicians don’t—they’re not hearing that sound inside of their music. I want to write and arrange music that makes other musicians hear tap dance the way tap dancers do, and have a fondness for that sound of metal on wood.
What’s unique about this project is that it’s also an evening-length work with spatial, movement, and rhythmic motifs. The arrangements are really specific around the sound of the tap dancing. It’s not just a tune with a melody and solos. When composing, I would say, “Okay, I want to write this song in 5/4 time. Let me make a time step or two.” All of the steps played in the final song are remixes of the sounds in those time steps, and the music is phrased around their accents.
As an improviser, I’m in a place where I’m still trying to figure out what choices I want to make and where. Early on in the process, I would write a melody I liked, then I would go into the studio and say, “This doesn’t make me want to dance at all.” It’s going to take a few years for all that information to settle in a way that feels confident.
I always wanted to make stuff that, if you could just watch it, it would be great to watch, and if you could just listen, it would be great to listen to. People go to concerts and they know all the words. Wouldn’t that be so cool if people showed up to a tap dance show and knew all the rhythms?
The power of accents in your phrasing when you’re just listening makes so much difference. At Berklee, there was a recording class where we’d record a tune with our ensemble. I had to think: The visual of the steps I’m doing are not going to matter. How can I really bring out the tone?
Tap dancers don’t always get the opportunity to think about what their role is. So many times, we’re in a room with a bunch of people who all play the same instrument; we don’t think about what our job is inside of an ensemble. In this music, we’re trying to explore all the different roles that tap dance can have. There are a lot of improvised solos, but also a lot of choreography with counterpoints.
We’re trying to get non-tap dancers to hear tap dancing as music. How do you use tap dancing and staging and arrangements to make the audience leave with a better understanding of tap as an instrument? That’s our north star.
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