Serving as a bridge between tradition and innovation, history and progress - Indian Kathak and American Jazz Tap dance - continents and ages apart share parallel stories of struggle and perseverance in SPEAK. The sensational collaboration is created by the Leela Dance Collective. With rhythm, poetry, storytelling, music and dance, SPEAK features the world’s leading female Kathak dancers and iconic Tap dancers creating nothing short of magic on the stage, joined by the world’s leading Indian classical and American jazz musicians, SPEAK promises to thrill, provoke and move your spirit. This critically acclaimed dance collaboration comes to Raleigh, NC for three performances taking place on April 17 at 8 p.m. and April 18 at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. at Titmus Theatre, presented by NC State LIVE. SPEAK features Kathak classical dancers Rachna Nivas, Rina Mehta (both are primary torch bearers of the late legendary master Pt. Chitresh Das’ famed lineage of Kathak), and Jazz Tap dancers Dormeshia (Tony Award-Winning Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk) and Josette Wiggan-Freund (Spotlight Award-Winner, first National Broadway Tour of 42nd Street, member of Michelle Dorrance’s all-woman quartet), carrying forward the legacy of iconic male artists like Pandit Chitresh Das, Jimmy Slyde and James Buster Brown, while bringing to the forefront the voices of a new generation of powerful female artists. SPEAK is a triumph of cross-cultural collaboration co-created by Rachna Nivas, Rina Mehta, Dormeshia and Michelle Dorrance (Chapel Hill native, Dorrance Dance, NY). To celebrate the NC State LIVE performances, the artists from SPEAK along with Dorrance will be in residence at NC State LIVE from April 13 to 18 for a week of free community events including pop up performances, Tap and Kathak jams, film screenings, master classes, artist talks and more. To stay updated on events, visit go.ncsu.edu/speak Socially relevant, SPEAK takes risks and breaks creative barriers, celebrating unique and contrasting forms of expression, while finding common ground. These cross-cultural performances emphasize improvisation as the unifying core rather than choreography, highlighting the vacuum of female artists in these art forms - a climate where well-known masters are still men. Most importantly, SPEAK uncovers how we are unique and how we are one. It is a statement for how we can be global citizens of this world.