The Knee-Heart Connection is a tap dance-theater project led by Orlando Hernández that brings together mask-work, physical theater, original music, research, and improvisation to create unique experiences of rhythm + reflection.
What We Do
We explore history, myth, & futurity through the lens of the Puerto Rican diaspora.
We lean into tap dance & embodied rhythm as engines of character and story.
We follow the work of theorists & writers including Édouard Glissant, José Luís González, and Octavia Butler, who take transformation as a point of origin. We put pressure on nodes of memory, cultural formation, colonial violence, and resistance, developing complex narratives that are at least as sweet as the fruit of our contradictions.
We honor our teachers and the legacy of tap dance as a Black American art form rooted in freedom.
We commit ourselves to the larger cultural project of reclaiming our Indigenous and African Diasporic practices and creating new, transformative myths of what it means to be human.
We find joy and silliness in the room and on the stage.
This work has been supported and presented by New York Live Arts, the Center for Performance Research, the Judson Church, Pioneers Go East Collective, the CUNY Dance Initiative, Perelman Arts Center, Snug Harbor, JKW Collective Fund, the Changing Times Tap Initiative, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and Jacob’s Pillow. We have upcoming residencies at Bridge Street Theatre through Guggenheim Works & Process and Hostos Community College through the CUNY Dance Initiative.
With Leonardo Sandoval, Lucas Santana, Jackson Clayton, Liberty Styles, Isabella Serricella, Gregory Richardson, & Keren Abreu. Not pictured: our fearless musical director, Danny Fisher-Lochhead