Counterpoint: Conrad Tao and Caleb Teicher’s Unique Fusion of Music and Dance

When you’ve got music and rhythm, who could ask for anything more? That’s exactly what audiences will find during Counterpoint: Conrad Tao & Caleb Teicher, presented by Performing Arts Houston this month at the Wortham Center downtown. The show pairs pianist and composer Conrad Tao with tap dancer and choreographer Caleb Teicher in a performance that explores how the arts can be so different but so similar at the same time.

“The show is a 70-minute music-and-dance concert with one person playing an instrument and the other person dancing,” says Teicher, who uses they/them pronouns. “People recognize it as a really unique and entertaining evening.”

During the show, Tao and Teicher frequently play and dance without facing each other. They reimagine an aria from Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Art Tatum’s flashy stride piano, Arnold Schoenberg’s ironic take on the Viennese waltz, and more, exploring the counterpoint of music and dance. Threading it all together is a work that bridges several musical styles—Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. 

“It’s music and dance, but it’s dance with a very present, sonic component,” says Tao, who identifies as gay. “It’s also a concert of two musicians. And maybe, if you want to look at it a certain way, I’m also a physical performer on the piano, so it could be thought of as two dancers who make sound.”

In music, explains Tao, “counterpoint” is defined as “the art of playing melodies in conjunction with one another, according to fixed rules.”

“We were thinking about the traditional European classical music evolution of the word “counterpoint”—the music of Johann Sebastian Bach,” Tao continues. “We were also thinking in a bigger way about “counterpoint” as discussion or conversation between our different art forms of music and dance, our different instruments of piano and tap dance, and the different traditions that are attached to that.”

“We do improvise during the show in certain sections,” Teicher adds. “It’s a live show. It’s the type of show where we’re very aware that the audience is there, and we’re responding to their energy, what seems to connect with them, or how they seem to be connecting with it. So our repertoire stays relatively stable, but every show feels quite different.”

“It’s hard to verbalize, but I think that ultimately we connect across the musical dimension,” Tao explains. “I think where we’re positioned onstage, Caleb never sees my fingers and I never see their feet. We do make eye contact, and there is this sort of theatrical connection that we share as performers. It feels very much like sharing our being and our soul on stage. But also, I think it’s a testament to the power of music, the power of rhythm, and the power of listening. I would say the dimension I feel most connected to is just simply the musical line.”

This connection between the two artists began long before they first met in New York City.

“At first, we were kind of admirers of each other’s art from afar as young people who were working in the performing arts in New York. We just started attending each other’s shows,” Teicher says. “We became friends because I liked what Conrad was doing and Conrad seemed to like what I was doing. And then, around 2016 or 2017, we started discussing doing a large collaboration together.”

The first show involved seven dancers along with Tao onstage, and it was all new music. Because of that show, someone pitched them the idea of just having Teicher and Tao onstage.

“That’s not really our style, and we were kind of skeptical mostly because we’re likely to be skeptical of anything—any idea that’s pitched to us, as opposed to coming from our brains,” Teicher admits. “But we premiered it virtually in 2020 through the Library of Congress, and then in person in May of 2021. Something about it just really worked.”

Now they perform their Counterpoint program from 10 to 20 times every year.

“Audiences tend to really connect with our show in such a natural way,” Teicher says. “There is abstraction in the show. There are aspects that are arguably challenging, but people so often feel really connected with the sort of immediacy of the show, and it’s such a joy.”

What: Counterpoint: Conrad Tao & Caleb Teicher, presented by Performing Arts Houston
When: September 14 at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Wortham Center’s Cullen Theater
Info: Tickets start at $19. performingartshouston.org or call 713-227-4772