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LayeRhythm Productions, Inc. (LPI) highlights freestyle dance and music voices under-recognized in the traditional performing arts landscape while providing entertainment, building community through play, educating audiences in cultural history, preserving the legacy of street & club dance forms, transforming individuals’ relationship to music & dance and supporting emotional & social well-being. LayeRhythm is dedicated to risk-taking improvisation and interactive audience engagement through performances and educational events.
"[LayeRhythm is a] brew of partying and performing that unfolds as a series of interactive sessions in which suggestions from the crowd beget songs and steps. Imagine an improv comedy show where dancing, not laughs, is the currency. Then imagine a musicians’ jam session where the band is compelled to keep the dancers’ pace instead of the other way around. [...] [W]hat’s distinct about LayeRhythm is the way it bridges the two groups with crowd participation" (The New York Times).
Since 2015, LayeRhythm (LR), led by Founder/Artistic Director Mai Lê Hô, has offered NYC monthly interactive, improvisational street/club music and dance jam sessions at Meridian 23 and Nublu, as well as performances at venues/festivals such as Jacob’s Pillow, Bridge Street Theater, 92NY Harkness Dance Center, Movement Research at Judson Church, Abrons Arts Center, The National Jazz Museum in Harlem, Spiegeltent at Bard College, NYU Skirball, Lincoln Center, SummerStage, NY Public Library for the Performing Arts, Gibney, The Church (Sag Harbor), Manhattan West Plaza, and presented by Works & Process at the Guggenheim Museum. LayeRhythm was selected by CUNY Dance Initiative for residencies at Brooklyn College for the Performing Arts (2021-2022) & Baruch College (2023-2024), and was nominated National Dance Institute’s Helen Stambler Neuberger Artist-in-Residence (2022-2023). LR has partnered w/ 92NY, Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, Hook Arts Media, Queens County Farm Museum, PotaY, Teatro Yerbabruja, Hi-Arts, Rolling Stone. Its educational and professional development programs have been hosted at/supported by Hunter College, Fordham High School for the Performing Arts, Ladies of Hip-Hop x Snipes studio and the Brooklyn Arts Council.
LPI incorporated as a nonprofit in 2020, and has since received the support of the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, Harkness Foundation for Dance, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Dance/NYC, Club Culture Foundation.
The LR experimental platform layers extemporaneous collaborations of live musicians and freestyle dancers, working from a diverse cultural palette: hip hop, funk, soul, house music, and popping, locking, waacking, Detroit jit, Chicago footwork, krump, flexN, breaking, voguing, litefeet, house dance styles.
LR has given the spotlight to 400+ local and international street/club dancers and musicians (ages 21-60). Artists include African American, Latinx, Asian, LGBTQ+, and immigrant communities. In 100+ presentations, LR has served a diverse audience of: patrons of clubs, theaters, parks, festivals (40,000+), and online community (800,000+).