Electric Feet

“It’s almost like dancing with a couple of aliens connected to me,” says Alfred Desio about the transducers he wears on his tap shoes to link him to electronic equipment.

“They’re alive in their own way,” he explains, “with their batteries charging a small computer and each doing specific things.”

What they do is translate Desio’s tap sounds into electronic music, as the audience will discover at 3:30 this afternoon in the Bing Theater, USC, when Desio performs in concert with his wife, Louise Reichlin.

If Desio’s technique seems familiar, it’s because Gregory Hines used it in his recent movie, “Tap.”

A former Broadway performer who pioneered his dance-electronics fusion about seven years ago, Desio reports no particular career changes in the wake of “Tap” and says he has been concentrating on teaching, dancing and developing his tap technology.

“My technique has changed a lot since I began,” he says. “Making the tap rhythms has become more relaxed in the execution and the technique itself is simpler. I’ve pared down my equipment and I no longer have to dance close to it. I can be anywhere on stage.”

Looking ahead, Desio sees even more changes. “With technology as it is today, my system will become more developed and refined to where it probably will be as big as a computer chip. Then I’ll be free of the physical part of electronics.”

In the meantime, Desio notes that his system imposes extra demands: “It requires a concentration and awareness of choreography and technology that I can’t abandon the way I can when I’m out there just tapping.”

Despite the demands, Desio says he prefers to dance with electronics. “It can be puzzling and frustrating,” he admits. “And sometimes I feel joy when I explore the possibilities that would never open up to me otherwise. I can cut loose and reach a new place that hasn’t been reached before by tap dancers.”