2022 Faculty
Sarah Savelli
Sarah Savelli started tap dancing at her mother's dance studio in Northeast Ohio at the age of four, and has loved it ever since. She began instructing locally at the age of twelve, and has been teaching, performing, choreographing, and producing tap events for the past 20 years. Sarah was a founding and choreographing member of Rhythm ISS... an influential Chicago-based, all-female tap company in the 90's, and is on the faculty of numerous studios, tap festivals and competition/conventions in New York City, Chicago, Michigan, and Cleveland; including The American Rhythm Center, Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Center and Lou Conte's (Chicago), the Chicago Human Rhythm Project, Third Coast Rhythm Project, West Coast Dance Explosion, Totally Tap, and Tapperfest Toronto.
Best known for her swift and intricate footwork, Sarah was commissioned on three separate occasions by Playhouse Square (Cleveland, OH) to create and perform in a full-length tap work (Tap into Peace), was the first Capezio ACE Award for Tap choreography finalist in 2010, and appears in the PBS documentary Juba! The Masters of Tap and Percussive Dance.
Sarah has studied and performed with many of tap dancing's historical greats, and most recently has had the pleasure of dancing with Savion Glover in various shows across the USA including a holiday revue and "Stepz" on tour and at the Joyce Theater. She is also the artistic director of the Cleveland Tap Crew, a youth tap company with 60+ members that she established in 2012.
For more information, please visit www.digandswivel.com.
Martin "Tre" Dumas
TRÉ is a tap dancer, choreographer and actor, from Chicago, IL. He received most of his early dance training and his first teaching experience at Tommy Sutton's Mayfair Academy of fine Arts on Chicago's south side. He's a graduate of Clark Atlanta University holding a B.A. in Mass Media Arts with a concentration in Speech and Theatre Arts.
Since 1995 he's taught and performed regularly at various festivals including CHRP's Rhythm World, the L.A. Tap Fest, the St. Louis Tap Festival, Third Coast Rhythm Project, Chicago Tap Summit (which he co-founded), North Carolina Rhythm Tap Festival and the Vancouver International Tap Dance Festival among others.
TRÉ was featured in the North American and European tours of "Riverdance the show" for over 3 years. In 2001 Mr. Dumas partnered with Bril Barrett to create M.A.D.D Rhythms, and the M.A.D.D. Rhythms Tap Academy. He portrayed a fiery tap dancing preacher in the vignette "Dance Like David" in director/choreographer Derick Grant's "Imagine Tap", and co-starred w/Dormeshia Sumbry Edwards in the critically acclaimed independent film "The Rise and Fall of Miss Thang". He was also seen on the only aired episode of Secret Talents of the Stars dancing with R&B songstress and tap dancer, Mya. He's worked with Jason Samuels Smith's ACGI. And he created Chicago's most musical professional tap ensemble, Jus'LisTeN, featuring Jessica Chapuis, Nico Rubio and Lisa LaTouche. In 2014 he was featured dancing and singing in Night Cap at Vancouver, BC, Canada's Fox Cabaret w/Joel Hanna & Danny Neilsen. And the following year he did a three month artistic residency at the Vancouver Tap Society.
TRÉ has taught and performed throughout the U.S., Canada and Germany as well as other parts of Europe, South America and Asia.
Aside from his beautiful daughter, Lauren, his greatest joy lies in tap dancing and sharing his love and knowledge of tap dancing with others and receiving the same in return.
Tap IS Music...
Jus’LisTeN