Michael J. Love, M.F.A.

“A Better Genome” makes its world premiere tonight at Carnegie Hall! Co-composed by tap artist Michael J. Love (@dancermlove ) and @sopercussion ’s @jasontreuting , this Carnegie Hall co-commission—part of “United in Sound: America at 250”—highlights a uniquely American-born style of rhythm-making. “Tap dance is distinctive as both a dance and percussion tradition,” shares So Percussion’s @adamsliwinski79 . “As a percussion art form, it stands alongside jazz drumming or beatboxing as a virtuosic art form with strong lineages of improvisational skill.” Each of the six platforms Love performs on corresponds to different ensemble members, with Love’s choice of which platform to tap on sometimes signifying what that player should do. “The piece fluctuates between sections where we are interacting with Michael, and those where the percussionists’ role is more scripted and composed,” explains Sliwinski. “In this way, we incorporate both flexibility and structured composition.”

Come hear the world premiere of Michael J. Love and Jason Treuting’s A Better Genome LIVE this Friday, at @carnegiehall !! The piece is also featured on our epic new album, 25x25 - twentyfive new works recorded to celebrate 25 years of Sō, out on @cantaloupeny . This piece is a true collaborative gem- co-composed by Jason Treuting with the astonishing Michael J. Love, produced by our friends Russell Makowsky and Melanie Katzman, filmed beautifully by our friends at @fourtenmedia , co-commissioned by Andrea and George Miller and Carnegie Hall! @dancermlove @jasontreuting #25x25 #sopercussion #michaeljlove

I still cannot believe that EUDT is thriving at Emerson twenty years after we first were scrappily just trying to make a little niche space for ourselves. Thanks to everyone who has been a part and has supported. Wonderful to know that space still exists and has grown. And, to celebrate, I’ll open the vault just a tiny bit. Swipe to see us in wild outfits in the early 00s thinking we were so cool. We should have been reading and doing our homework.

LOUNDOVING projects presents DANCE/MUSIC an evening of new, reimagined and improvised music and dance works with Lisa La Touche (tap dance) Michael J. Love (tap dance) Kaleena Miller (tap dance) Aby Wolf (vocals and electronics) and Laura Wolf (cello and vocals) Sunday, May 31 doors at 6:30 PM / show at 7 PM at Francis Kite Club (NYC) tickets at kaleenamiller.com/tickets

Peering into practice 👀✨ What does it really mean to practice—not just perform, but stay inside the process? In this new piece from Noel Price-Bracey of thINKingDANCE, “Peering into Practice,” we’re invited to look closer at the labor, reflection, and lived experience that shape movement work from the inside out. Practice isn’t just repetition—it’s inquiry, endurance, and a way of thinking through the body. And there's a chance to see more from Michael J. Love at Cannon Miniball on April 18! Link in the bio to this and other new articles Photo: Courtesy of Michael J. Love Image Description: A dark teal border on the left and bottom edges of a white rectangle. In the center an image: Thirteen dancers in all white and different color tap shoes dance joyfully off of wooden boards in all directions. Their bodies blurred in space. In the lower-left corner of the post, in dark teal and black, a lowercase t and uppercase D, the logo for Thinking Dance. Above the image are blue letters that read Peering into Practice and below the image blue letters that read by Noel Price-Bracey. #PeeringIntoPractice #ThinkingDance #DanceWriting #ContemporaryDance #PerformanceArt #ProcessOverProduct #EmbodiedPractice #DanceResearch #LivePerformance #NYCDance #ExperimentalDance #ArtAndProcess #Choreography #DanceCommunity #TapDance #MuhlenbergCollegeTheatre&Dance

Philly! @cannonballfest Miniball 2026 begins today and on Saturday, April 18 at 3:30pm at Christ Church Neighborhood House, I’ll perform “Exercise 4,” the latest in my series of developmental sharings and events as I works towards premiering my new work “rhy/ntology (or, to be the rhythm).” Tickets and full info at link in bio. Would love to see you there! ✨

This past week/weekend, I spent five days at @bergtheatredance to conclude my time as the 2025-26 Baker Artist-In-Residence with a choreography workshop to develop portions of my new piece, “rhy/ntology (or, to be the rhythm),” and a work-in-progress showing. In addition to the current cast, @jeffreyclarkjr , @lisalatouche , @kaleenamiller , and Robyn Watson, I invited a group of select Muhlenberg Dance students into the rehearsal room and to be a part of the showing. Each of them entered the process with an infectious joy, enthusiasm, commitment, and rigor that has bought the piece to an exciting stage in its journey. Many thanks to everyone at Muhlenberg Theatre & Dance and the Baker Foundation and especially to Robyn for initially putting my name forward for this residency.⁣ ⁣ As of now, this piece is very much so “you had to be there.” So, for the moment, all you’re gonna get is these screenshots of the documentation footage. Development continues and a full premiere coming soon. ✨

Today, we are thrilled to announce the 2026 GRAFA recipients: ✨ Brett Ashley Robinson ✨ Michael J. Love ✨ Anissa Weinraub & Chantelle Bateman We are proud to be supporting the development of their work in partnership with the Albert M. Greenfield Foundation. Stay tuned for project updates and opportunities to engage with these works-in-process at public showings!

New work! Performances coming up soon! ✨ I’ve just returned to Philly after a week-long research residency at @nccakron during which I was able to continue to refine ideas for the new full-length piece I’m developing, “rhy/ntology (or, to be the rhythm).” Work on this new piece will continue this April when I’ll gather @jeffreyclarkjr , @lisalatouche , @kaleenamiller , and Robyn Watson at Muhlenberg College for a three-day residency as part of my time as the 2025-26 Dexter F. And Dorothy H. Baker Foundation Artist-In-Residence in the Department of Theater and Dance (@bergtheatredance ). Looking forward to transposing the ideas I worked out this past week in Akron into ensemble movement. On Saturday, April 11, I’ll give a work-in-progress showing which will also feature select Muhlenberg students. Give me a shout here on IG if you’re interested in joining us.⁣ ⁣ Additionally, I’m excited to also share some of “rhy/ntology” as part of @cannonballfest Miniball 2026 on Saturday, April 18 at 3:30pm at Christ Church Neighborhood House in Philly. 🔗 for tickets is in my bio.⁣ ⁣ “With ‘rhy/ntology (or, to be the rhythm),’ Love remains committed to his positioning of rhythm as an embodied-intellectual method for researching Black cultural histories as he shifts his focus from working ‘with and through’ rhythm to working ‘as,’ or becoming, rhythm. Instead of looking towards what literary scholar Nadia Ellis calls an ‘elsewhere’ of liberatory possibilities for Black queerness or attempting to travel to such a ‘new and satisfying space of exile’ as he has done in his previous work, Love now ventures to explore the possibility of becoming his own ‘elsewhere.’ Ultimately, ‘rhy/ntology’ encompasses Love’s embodied, rhythm-based exploration of legacy, futurity, labor in the name of liberation and pleasure, and the Ellis-ian concept of ‘resolving’ one’s own ‘potential.’”⁣ ⁣ 📸 by Justin Williams, courtesy of The Clarice Smith Center at UMD College Park (2023); Design by me.⁣

@sopercussion brought its innovative style and exhilarating artistry to a program of premieres at Carnegie Hall!     As part of “United in Sound: America at 250,” the standard-setting percussion ensemble brought music by leading American musical talents: @brycedessner ’s “Wood and Strings: Infinite Chorale,” @carolineadelaideshaw ’s “Strange and Artificial Echoes,” @kendallk.williams ’s “Panorama,” and @dancermlove and @jasontreuting ’s “A Better Genome,” featuring Love’s virtuosic tap dancing. 📸: @jennifertaylorphotography

👋🏿 2025!

Fall 2025 at Ursinus, my fifth semester on the tenure track, is in the books. I continue to be proud of the work I’m able to do on our Dance Program concerts as a curator, director, producer, choreographer, and educator who prioritizes rigor and a deep reverence for the Black vernacular.⁣ ⁣ Many thanks to our Fall 2025 Ursinus College Dance Company Guest Artists, @1swiftmotion , @amalia_cn_ , and @kingsleyibeneche , for all you’ve done for our students this fall—the work, the wisdom, the inspiration, the expansion of possibility in movement and rhythm and life. Many thanks to @merryberrydith , @dancinghealsproject , and @robertgburden for your contributions to the Dance Program this fall as educators. And also, many thanks to my dear colleague Karen Clemente and all who’ve supported the work, near and far.⁣ ⁣ One thing is for sure in this particular moment: it will be embodied knowledge and the lessons of our ancestors that will sustain us.⁣ ✨ ⁣ 📸: Production photos of Ursinus College Dance Company presents “sound(in)sight” (November 2025) by Mark Garvin, courtesy the Company. Costume design by Matthew Hogeland (@matthew_hogeland ). Lighting Design by Shannon Zura (photos 1-5 and photo 8) and Caitlin Shanahan (photos 6 and 7).