North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble

NCYTE brochure picture

The North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble (NCYTE) was founded in 1983. Gene Medler is the founder an artistic director. NCYTE serves to:

Entertain and inform audiences of the universal nature of percussive dancing.
Preserve tap, an indigenous American dance form, plus a variety of traditional percussive dances by teaching them to a new generation of performers and,
Offer young dancers an opportunity to perform and to refine the delight of dancing entertainment.

Performances include both the history and demonstration of an Irish Jig, a soft shoe, French Canadian waltz clog, a South African gum boot dance, bebop, sand dance, polyrhythmic a capella, Appalachian Buck and jazz/rhythm tap. NCYTE choreographers include Lane Alexander, Ira Bernstein, Barbara Duffy, Josh Hilberman, Jeannie Hill, Gene Medler, Zans McLachlan, Jan and Eddie Owens, Ruth Pershing and Savion Glover.

These kids are dancing at the highest level imaginable. There are perhaps a handful of companies nationwide which allow me complete choreographic freedom. Close your eyes and you could never tell that most of the dancers are too young to drive.

The company tours extensively in North Carolina and the South East and is a regular at the St. Louis Tap Festival. Contact: Gene Medler at 919-967-9624. See the Web site: http://www.ncyte.org/

Gene Medler, Director/Founder

Gene Medler

Gene Medler is founder and director of the highly acclaimed North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble. His teaching credits include Elon College (NC), St. Louis Tap Festival, American Dance Festival, and Duke University, plus numerous master classes in the Southeast. Selected performance experience includes solos of Duke Ellington's "David Danced" from his Sacred Music, Rising Stars of Tap (Colorado Dance Festival), and the Great Tap Reunion (Boston.) Gene also holds patent #4,660,305 for an electronic tap and tap shoe. Open-minded and innovative, Gene is one of the most effective teachers of rhythm tap today. Contact: (919) 967-9624.

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