Sandy Silva's work stands at the vanguard of contemporary artistry in traditional music and dance. Drawing on percussive dance practices from many regions, including Hungary, Appalachia, Cape Breton, and Andalusia, as well as the idioms of circus, contemporary dance, and theatre, Sandy weaves a dialogue between these vocabularies, blending the local and the modern in an organic, bodily response. The result is an incredibly dynamic and emotive visual expression created at the crossroads of movement and sound.

Committed to the craft of bodily rhythm-making, Sandy transcends the world of sound and gesture to engage emotionally with cultural form. She is a dynamic and consummate performer: her very presence can hush a crowd with the faintest whisper of a shoe against the floor or set the stage alight with blazing body rhythms.Sandy Silva has been teaching percussive dance for over 20 years. She began studying with master dancers and assimilating her learning through performing, creating and teaching with musicians from multiple musical genres. She draws upon the essence of these music/rhythm dance styles and is able to integrate them into a contemporary style of her own.

Sandy's innovative work with both professional and amateur modern dancers, tap dancers, buck and step dancers, circus artists, schoolchildren, hip hop dancers, vocalists, percussionists and musicians has gained her an international reputation as a truly creative and inspirational teacher. Her work teaches students the essential tools for listening, analyzing and embodying music as a human instrument.