Artist Bios

SHARON LEAHY choreographed her first public performance at the age of 13 in her hometown of Woodbridge, New Jersey. After studying and working in North Carolina and New York, Sharon moved to the Midwest to focus her talents on creating and performing works for Rhythm in Shoes. This work has received national acclaim, as well as numerous fellowship awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ohio Arts Council.

Her work has also been supported by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, The Dayton Foundation and Jacob’s Pillow. She has created work for numerous dance companies, orchestras, has taught at several colleges and universities, and is currently artist in residence at the University of Dayton.

Collaboration is at the heart of her work and her passion for dancing is exceeded only by the joy of sharing the stage with family and friends.

RICK GOOD has been composing, arranging and leading the band for RIS since 1987. A founding member of The Hotmud Family, he also worked for several years as a full-time actor with Mad River Theater Works of Ohio. He is the recipient of meet-the-composer grants from both the New York Council on the Arts and Arts Midwest.

In addition to his work with RIS, Rick was musical director for the Dayton Stories Project, celebrating the city’s bicentennial in 1996. His first recorded collection of original songs, Nova Town, was released in 1997 and followed in the year 2000 by an evening’s length theatrical production with his original script.

In 2003, Rick helped create the wildly successful Doctor Goodfellow’s Traveling Vaudeville for Dayton’s Centennial of Flight Celebration. Since the creation of Rambleshoe, RIS’ 2002 collaboration with the Red Clay Ramblers, Rick has been playing his banjo and moonlighting with that popular North Carolina band whenever the ‘Shoes’ schedule permits.

KEVIN G. ANDERSON joined Rhythm in Shoes in 1999. A Dayton native and 1993 graduate of the University of Dayton geology department, Kevin combined rocks and rolls while playing in a variety of bands. Today, he can be found onstage performing with RIS, filling in for the Classic Jazz Stompers, or composing rock and techno beats with mentor and fellow percussionist Will Shoemaker. An accompanist with the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company since 1993, Kevin has been composing music for dance for more than a decade. Among his works is “Phases,” premiered by DCDC in 1999, and “Shades of Possession,” set in 2004 for the Wright State University Dance Concert. Kevin has worked as an accompanist/resident composer for Jeraldyne’s School of the Dance, Stivers School for the Arts and WSU, among others. On stage, or in his studio, he can be found playing on fly wheels, Dutch ovens or crushed mailboxes.

Armed with a razor-sharp wit and moviestar smile, BEN COOPER is one dangerous character. He began playing music 12 years ago and started touring with Rhythm in Shoes in the fall of 1997. Adept on guitar and fiddle, as well as the bass, he moonlights with his old time bands, the Ohio Corndaddys and the Buvas. As a father of two, a neighborhood handyman, and now a college student, Ben just doesn’t know what to with his spare time.

EMMA LEAHY-GOOD has been in the Rhythm in Shoes family since before her first step. Emma’s formal training began at the age of 4 with Irish step dancing at the Richens Academy. She moved on to learn tap and clogging from her mother and all the other members of RIS and was a student of ballet at Pontecorvo Studios and modern dance at Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. Emma currently lives in Louisiana and, whenever RIS isn’t calling her to the stage, she works with children at the Big Red Barn Montessori Day School.

JANET SCHROEDER earned a BFA in Musical Theatre from Ohio Northern University and credentials to teach high school English from Bluffton College. After two years of teaching, she traded her textbooks for tap shoes and has been tapping and clogging with Rhythm in Shoes ever since. Janet is in her fifth season with the company and is co-director of Shoe2, Rhythm in Shoes’ junior company. She keeps very busy teaching workshops, residencies, and regular weekly classes in the Dayton area. She is also an adjunct professor at the University of Dayton.

JESSICA SHAW began dancing in Wausau, WI where she began working with Janne Jackson Bean (San Francisco Ballet, ABT). She was a founding member of Allegro Regional Dance Theatre. After graduating high school in 2003, she continued making appearances with Allegro thoughout her college career. Jessica received a BA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point in 2007. There she worked with Susan Hughes-Gingrasso, Joan Karlen and Jeannie Hill. Jessica was a member of the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company’s Second Company (DCDC2) in 2007-2008. Last season, she danced both with Rhytm in SHoes and Mam-Luft Dance Company. This is her second season with Rhythm in Shoes.

HAZEL BLACK is in the seventh grade at Stivers School for the Performing Arts in Dayton. She has been taking class with RIS for the past six years and has been a member of Shoe2, the RIS junior ensemble for two years. Hazel is also a competitive swimmer.

James currently holds the position of chief engineer for Production Solutions Incorporated, a Dayton-based company that specializes in concert sound and live event services. He has worked as a systems technician for Stomp and Blessed Union of Souls.

As house engineer at Fraze Pavilion in Kettering, Ohio, and as an independent contractor, James has worked with a virtual Who’s Who of entertainers and celebrities including the Count Basie Orchestra, Booker T. and the MGs and Vice President Al Gore.