Audiences might expect Evie Ladin and Keith Terry to be exhausted after one of their performances, since a lot of their show involves simultaneously singing, dance, playing instruments and body drumming. But they say it has the opposite effect.
“It’s exhilarating,” Terry said. “It fires a lot of neurons. It’s really energizing.”
Ladin and Terry’s concerts are a unique blend of both of their personal styles. Ladin grew up in the Southern Appalachian tradition, playing clawhammer banjo and singing as well as clogging. Terry started out as a drummer.
“In the mid-'80s, I was playing a lot of drums for tap dancers,” Terry said. “I had a moment one day in rehearsal where I realized I could play everything I was playing [on drums] on my body, so I stood up and started moving, and it kind of went from there.”
Both performers dance and play several other instruments as well. They play original songs, usually written by Ladin, and they both choreograph their performances.
“We have some really moving songs, and then there are some really exciting dance numbers, and up-tempo stuff,” Ladin said. “It’s a real mix, and the feedback that we get from audiences is that we really kind of take them on an adventure. We’re playing and singing and dancing all at the same time, and we think of it really as the full exploration of the sonic body.”
Ladin and Terry met in Ohio when Terry’s percussion ensemble was hired to work with Ladin’s dance company on a project.
“We fell in love!” Ladin said.
While the idea of body music might seem unusual, Terry sees it as a very natural art form.
“It’s like how instruments are just an extension of bodies,” he said. “The fact that body music is probably the oldest music on the planet. Before we were making instruments, it’s probably how we were expressing musical ideas. It just seems like part of that evolution to me.”
Ladin writes all of their songs, and she puts just as much thought into that aspect of their show as they put into the instrumentals and choreography.
“I’m really interested in really beautiful turns of phrases and lyrics that are very evocative," Ladin said. “It’s like [putting] poetry to music, the combination of those things, and then adding a dance element or a percussion element. We really like to get people to feel that same kind of exhilaration, or feel things about life and nature and love that really make you human.”
Terry, who often doesn’t know the words to their songs, is less interested in that aspect of the show.
“It’s just the rhythm, the groove and just the underlying emotion. [The words] aren’t the part that moves me.”
Ladin and Terry will be performing at the UU Coffeehouse on Saturday. Their next album is scheduled for release in 2016.