Evie Ladin and Keith Terry will be performing on March 26 at Isis Restaurant & Music Hall. Evie’s voice, clawhammer banjo, and effortless footwork leap and sway between Keith’s quicksilver beats, shuffles, and snaps: the distinct language of body music.

Evie and Keith dance their songs, sometimes in perfect lockstep, sometimes in lovely tension. They bring new life to body music by utilizing rhythmic systems and concepts from around the world as well as tying back to their own Southern Appalachian roots.

Now through April, they will be performing and hosting a series of workshops in the Midwest and Upper South. The duo will be exploring new material, originals Evie penned in a marathon session last year and due to appear on an album in 2016. The Laurel was privileged to ask both of them a few questions recently.

Laurel: Where did you grow up and what was your earliest experience with music, movement, and dance?

Evie: I grew up in many houses on the East Coast, from New York to Baltimore. My father fell in love with old-time stringband music in the ‘50s in New York City, well before I was born, and my mother was an international folk dance teacher. There were always musicians and cloggers traveling through and staying with us, and it was not unusual for us to come to this part of the country for a good party.

Keith: I grew up in Texas and played in the band and jazz band, beginning in the 3rd grade. I went to SMU for two years on a music scholarship, then quit school to move to New York to play music and study, and a few years later ended up in the San Francisco Bay Area. I've played drums since I was three years old, so I've played all my life. I started moving in 1978.

Laurel: When did you first know that you were destined to be a performer?

Evie: I was performing for many years since I graduated college, wondering in my downtime between tours what I was meant to be doing with my career. Of course I finally realized I was already doing it. I teach as well, and enjoy it, but I always make sure performing has priority, as it's a state I really love. I am at my most present, and truly enjoy meeting and connecting with audience members, on and off stage.

Keith: My cousin and her boyfriend took me to the Longhorn Jazz Festival in Dallas when I was 10 years old. I heard Cannonball and Nat Adderly, Dione Warwick and Thelonius Monk and his trio play that night, and I knew then I wanted to be a part of this.

Laurel: How did you learn about the type of body music you do?

Evie: I grew up clogging, square dancing, and playing old-time banjo – and hambone is a part of that tradition. As I explored both the African roots of Appalachian music/dance, and aspects of creative choreography, I started incorporating more body percussion and different rhythms, foot percussion, with contemporary dance ideas.

In the group Rhythm In Shoes, with whom I toured for eight years, Sharon Leahy did a lot of contemporary work grounded in similar traditions, and it was with that group that I first collaborated with Keith. (Sharon is a former Green Grass Clogger!). I am currently teaching myself a new style of body vocabulary, using hands, feet, voice and ensemble choreography with harmonized vocal parts. The rhythms are from the African diaspora, and the songs are from Appalachia, or ones I've written. I love performing where music and dance are one and the same.

Keith: In the 1970s I was a founding member of the Jazz Tap Ensemble. Through my involvement with this group I had the great privilege of playing drums for some of the all-time greatest tap dancers, folks like the Nicholas Brothers, Sandman Simms, Chuck Green, Eddie Brown, Steve Condos, Honi Coles, Cookie Cook and Jimmy Slyde. They've all passed on now, but I was so inspired by them and their ability to create a dance with its own soundtrack, or music that moved in space.

One day I was in a rehearsal and I realized I could stand up and displace everything I was playing on the drums on to my body. And it just went from there. Char'les Honi Coles and Charles Cookie Cook both took me aside at different times, but basically they both told me what I was doing was similar to the hambone they had done in Vaudeville, but what I was doing was different rhythmically and it moved in a different way. They both encouraged me to pursue it, and I took their advice. I'm still pursuing it.

Laurel: What is it like to experience the audience's reaction to your style of music?

Evie: Honestly, we get surprisingly strong, rowdy and personal responses from audiences. We love making people laugh and cry, and it's always nice to hear the audible gasp of delight at the end of certain songs or dances.

Keith: Surprise, laughter, tears. The reaction runs a gamut, but it's pretty accessible work.

Come to Isis March 26 and experience the old-time tunes and jazz-inflected rhythmic licks as they develop into beautifully crystallized tales and subtly improvised claps, stomps, and snaps in songs like the feisty “Dime Store Glasses.” Click here for tickets: http://isisasheville.com/calendar/full-calendar/