About the Event

Summer Tuesdays come alive on the MCA terrace with free concerts highlighting artists from Chicago’s internationally renowned music community. Enjoy live music while relaxing on the lawn with your own picnic, or savor snacks and drinks available for purchase. Then head inside to catch the MCA’s summer exhibitions—we’re open late on Tuesdays and free for Illinois residents.

In April 2023, tap dance extraordinaire Jumaane Taylor presented his evening-length work, Supreme Love, a tap dance production honoring John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme. Now, for his terrace debut, Taylor shares the stage with The Jazz Hoofing Quartet, which includes noted Chicago musicians—saxophonist Brent Griffin Jr., bassist Jeremiah Hunt, and drummer Charles Rick Heath—in two multidisciplinary sets of live dance and music.

About the Artist

Jumaane Taylor, a Chicago native, has been tap dancing since the age of seven, beginning at the Sammy Dyer School of the Theatre. He has been part of the ensemble in noted shows such as Imagine Tap! (2006, directed and choreographed by Derick K. Grant); Tap Into Peace (2009, directed and choreographed by Sarah Savelli and Ayodele Casel); and Rasta Thomas’s Tap Stars in Hamburg, Germany. In 2014, Taylor created Supreme Love, a dance production honoring John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme and the art of tap with live musicians, premiering at jazz music and dance festivals including Jacob’s Pillow in 2017.

Taylor has received the Chicago Dancemakers Forum 2017 Lab Artist Award and the 3Arts 2019 Award, and has presented his work with the MCA, Jazz Institute of Chicago, Columbia College-Dance Center, and abroad. He teaches at Mayfair Arts Center, Ruth Page School of Dance, and the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. Since 2021 Taylor has also been the artistic director of the Chicago Human Rhythm Project.

In 2018 Taylor established the Jazz Hoofing Quartet, a solo dance performance that uses improvisation to continue the progressive exploration of live music and tap. After 30 years of training in the art of tap and more than 15 years working with musicians, Taylor presents a tap dancer leading a band of musicians into these improvisational and compositional sets.