March 7, 2025 • 18 mins
For Ayodele Casel tap dancing is magic. As a young high school student, she dreamed of one day dancing like Ginger Rogers as she recreated Ginger’s moves in her bedroom. But it wasn’t until Ayodele Casel was a sophomore at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts that she took her first tap dancing class. That was her entry point into the art form which would eventually lead to a more than 20 year career as a professional tap dancer.
As a Black and Puerto Rican woman, Ayodele Casel didn’t see herself reflected in the mainstream image of tap dancers because the form has been largely whitewashed through systematic racism. For that reason, she works tirelessly to remind her audiences that tap is deeply rooted in Black art and culture.
In this episode of “How I Made It” Ayodele takes us through her tap journey, and reclaims tap dancing as a Black art form.
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This episode originally aired in 2021.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is me.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
So my entry point to it was Ginger Rogers, but
really this is my legacy.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This art form is my legacy.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
From futro media and pox. It's Latino Usa. I'm Maria
nor Posa today, a yodel Cacil, the decorated Afro Latina
tap dancer and how her art is part of her legacy.
For Ayodelic Cascill, tap dancing is not just a series
(00:37):
of steps, it's magic. It's when she feels the most
free and is able to connect to her cultural heritage.
The Bronx native was born to a Puerto Rican mother
and a Black father. She discovered tap through the silver
screen at a young age, transfixed by Fred Astaire and
Ginger Rogers, so much so that she started recreating their
(00:59):
move in her Bronx bedroom. But it wasn't until she
was a sophomore at the NYU Tish School of the
Arts that she took her first tap dancing class, and
she's been dancing ever since. During her almost three decade
long career, Ayodetta has received a number of accolades and awards,
(01:20):
despite the field being dominated by male dancers. Ayodette was
the first woman to be invited to dance for Savion
Glover's Not Your Ordinary Tap Dancers group, and she's performed
in places like the White House, Radio City Music Hall,
and Carnegie Hall. In twenty nineteen, she was featured in
a series of forever stamps from the US Post Office,
(01:42):
the Black Heritage Stamp Series. A documentary about Ayodeeda's development
as an artist, titled Tapping Into Our Past Tapping Into
Our Future, premiered in twenty twenty two. In that same year,
Ayodeeda's tap choreography in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl
earned her a Drama Desque nomination. Her work calls attention
(02:07):
to how tap dancing is an expression of identity, culture, language,
and communication, but also to the forgotten history of black
tap dancers. Here's Iodlica said as she taps us through
her journey in a story we first aired in twenty
twenty one.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
My name is Iodele Cassell.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I am a tap dancer, choreographer, actor, lover of tesla
and stake. My name means joy has arrived and it
is Nigerian Yoruba.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
My father named me. It's one of my favorite things.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I am a native New Yorker, proud Bronx native. When
I was nine, my mom sent me to Puerto Rico
to live with my grandparents.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
What I do remember the most, at least for.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
That initial landing, was feeling like, how am I going
to communicate?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I didn't speak the language at all. I knew one word.
I knew how to say ola, and that was it.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
My grandparents didn't speak English that well, and my grandmother
would teach me with like a letter stencil, who doosday
squadro one thing at a time. While I remember struggling
with the language, there was a seamless transition of when
you just are speaking it fluently. And I was there
until I was fifteen. I was supposed to be there
for one year and ended up being six. At the
(03:32):
age of seventeen, I was a senior in high school.
My English teacher she started a course called history with
the movies. That's when I first saw FREDI standing Gerrogers.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
You know, I think I was in lovely Van Hook.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
I know, you were.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
This world that seemed really interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Like I thought Fred and Ginger were like magic, so graceful,
and they had such great chemistry.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
It was just like it was beautiful to watch.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
There's something in the format of a musical that is
sort of fantastical, and as somebody who just did not
grow up seeing that, it was really intriguing. And then
of course tap dancing, if you don't know what goes
into it, it is a little bit like magic. It's
like you see people like moving their feet and all
of these sounds are coming out. I just wanted to
(04:22):
be able to move my feet in the way that
they did. And I remember like I would go home
after school and I'd go to the library to like
rent their movies, and I just close the door and
try to move like they were.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
What if I could do that?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
What if I could be Ginger fully knowing that there's
no way that this black and Puerto Rican girl was
gonna ever be considered anything like Ginger Rogers, because I
didn't see people like me who were on screen like that,
especially during those thirties and forties and fifties. So I
remember just sort of that being a fantasy. And then
I was an acting major at YU and my sophomore
(04:58):
year they offered two movement classes that the actors had
to take, and it was tap dancing and tai chi,
And I was like oh yeah, Oh my God, Like, finally,
this is going to be my chance to really get
to move my feet in the way that I saw
Ginger Rogers doing. So I signed up for tap immediately,
and I even got like some shoes that looked like
one of her shoes in the movie. I went to
(05:20):
pay Less shoe source, because you know, the dance school
has cheesy shoes. I got these really cool like heel
suede shoess and I got them tapped up, and I
felt like I walked into my first class in style.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
And I was so happy to do my first shuffle.
I was living my life.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
About a year after that, I met someone who was
a freshman and he was actually a real hood for
His name is Bookarie Wilder.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
He was like, yeah, you Tap dance. I was like yeah.
He was like, oh, we should go jam. I was like, yeah,
let's go.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Jam. He took me to that studio and I'm putting
up my shoes with my shuffle hopstep for lap ball change,
just all of the joy and the spirit in the world.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
As I'm lacing up, he starts to warm up. I
heard him go I had never heard that ever. I
had heard Dad Dee d d day. So I realized
very quickly that I did not know what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
It was a really formative time and really impactful because
he was like, oh, wait a minute, you know Gregory Hines, right,
And I was like, no, I don't know him.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Do you know, like Sammy Davis Junior. I'm like, god,
I didn't know know the Nicholas Brothers. No, he said,
tap dancing is.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Not just a series of steps, and it's not combinations
that you do in dance class. This is a real
form of expression because it comes from you. He's like,
you don't even need music. He taught me that this
art form was really rooted in the history of black
people in this country, that it.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Is my legacy.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I think this art form of tap dancing speaks really
directly to the history of this country and lands squarely
at the intersection of race and gender and appropriation. And
we talk about the development of the slave codes of
seventeen forty, for example, born out of the rebellion that
black people in this country they knew rhythm. They were
(07:27):
so connected to their power in that way that they
could start revolts across plantations through communicating with specific rhythms
and so when that was discovered, laws were enacted in
this country to basically ban them.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
What I love about that story.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Even though it's completely steeped in oppression and a dehumanization,
is that the spirit of a human being, in the
spirit of black people, that what happens when somebody attempts
to take away your mode of expression and to take
away your instrument, you find another way. You're not gonna
give me a drama. I can make sound with my feet,
(08:09):
I can make sound with my body, I can make.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Sound with my hands.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
The one thing you learn very quickly as a tap
dance student is that it thrives on your individual expression.
If I could describe it for somebody who doesn't do it,
is like if you have an impulse and then naturally
something starts to build and you get ideas that are
(08:35):
in rhythm form and your feet are able to communicate that.
So we have steps that have a different number of notes.
For example, a step is just one note. A shuffle
has two sounds, shuffule one two. A cramp roll has
four sounds. It starts to boil up into a rhythmic pattern,
(09:01):
and it's influenced by really your upbringing. I grew up
listening to Hector Lavo to Ray Boretto, and I grew
up listening to Orestis and Fania All Stars. And I
also grew up in the nineties, which is like the
height of hip hop. Everything that has entered your ear
(09:23):
has become part of your makeup, is available to you
when you get this impulse to move.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
So if I had sad, Sad, dad, and then I can.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Go on and on and on. But all of these
things just live there and they are available to you
to come out in whichever way that.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
You so choose.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
I think it was the beginning of a journey of
really getting to know myself as a human being. But
what made me think I can do this forever as
a career was when I saw Bringing the Noise in
the Funk at the Public Theater in ninety five. Bringing
the Noise, Bringing the Funk basically told the history of
Black people in this country through tap dancing from the
(10:12):
Middle Passage all the way through current times.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
It was revolutionary because it was the.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
First time that tap dancing was seen and heard in
a way that was not common like the way that
we think of tap dancing as like timesteps and everybody
in Unison with arm choreography, kind of like forty second.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Street type thing.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
It was really a true authentic representation of how the
form was living in America. And when I went to
that show and I saw young black actors, young black
tap dancers really on stage like having a story that
was told through them at a theater that was around
(10:53):
the corner from my school, That's when I thought, Oh,
I want to do that. And not only do I
want to do that, but I want to do it
to the best of my ability and I want to
dance with the best. And that is when I first
saw a way to do this long term. When I
started to dance professionally and I happened to come up
(11:14):
at a time when the focus was on a lot
of young men.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
The audience members at.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
The end of the show would say to me, I
did not know that women's have danced, or they'd be
like you, girl, you dance like a man. They would
say this as though they were giving me compliments. So
it was that moment of constantly hearing other people say
those things that made me look for the women that
look like me. Because I knew about ginger rogers and
Eleanor Powell and Vooby Keeler, and I knew about all
those women, but I didn't know of Jenny Legan. I
(11:42):
did not know of Lois Bright, I did not know
about Juanita Pits. I started to call out these names
just as I was learning them, and I would just
say Cora La Red, Juanita Pits, Louise Madison. I feel
like I can't change the past. What I can do
is I can bring them into my experience so that
when people see me tap dance, they understand that I
(12:02):
didn't just get plopped here, and there is a legacy
of women behind me who were doing it and who
should be named and recognized. It has become a practice
for me over the last twenty five years. I hold
them with me anytime that I'm dancing. Then we could
talk about appropriation, how a lot of the white dancers
(12:23):
were royalistic in these black communities and taking their work
and performing it while black people did not have the
right and ability to perform themselves. Even when we talk
about the silver Screen, we know Fredistang and Gerrogers, and
we celebrate Freda Stair very easily, but we don't know
that one of his teachers was John Bubbles, who was
a black dancer who actually revolutionized the art form by
(12:45):
dropping his heels into the ground and allowing more.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Notes to be played with his feet.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
We don't know about Jenny Leaghan, a black tap dancer
who's actually the first black woman to dance with Bill Robinson,
who was a huge star at the time. But we
know Shirley Temple, we know oh Sammy Davis Junior and
Jimmy Slide and Buster Brown and Chuck Green and all wonderful,
beautiful tap dancers, but we don't know the women that
were their contemporaries, their colleagues who were also trying to
(13:13):
work in the same way. Really, the one of my
missions is to really transform the way people view tap dancing.
So I'm happy that Chasing Magic kind of allowed that
(13:36):
window into that. We were invited by Aaron Maddox at
the Joyce Theater. Aaron reached out and said, Hey, do
you want to do something for our virtual season? And
I was like, I haven't seen any of my friends,
and I thought, well, how are we going to do this?
I sent tapes, just video recordings of some choreography, and
we had one day of rehearsal and then two days
(13:59):
of actual shooting and that was it.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
So it came together like magic, actually very quickly.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
But because we had really wonderful, committed and focused and
generous dancers, we made it happen. And Chasing Magic, you'll
see solos, duets, trios, You'll see full group numbers. We're
(14:28):
gonna see numbers that are a cappella, numbers that swing
Latin jazz.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
You're gonna hear an African and six' eight rhythm just
done with our.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Feet we're gonna dance to a soft shoe and a
waltz and we're gonna like really hit it. Hard What
i'm trying to do is just show really the depth
of the art form and how much we.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Can accomplish with just two pieces of metal on our.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
FEET i Think Chasing magic is a celebration of, collaboration, friendship, art,
life honoring our, experiences honoring our, history and just like
how all those elements sort of come together to really
create these little magical. Moments i've read a lot of
things lately about agism and, dance and one of the
(15:17):
things That i'm really inspired by about tap dancing is
that we dance until we no longer, can whether you're
into your eighties or your. NINETIES i grew up knowing
that the older you, get the better you, get and
So i've never felt, like, OH i got to get
make sure that to get all my things Before i'm
thirty or Before i'm. Forty IF i feel like tap
(15:39):
dancing is one of those art forms that it's like,
wine you get better with, AGE.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I think one of the.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Things THAT i have been building towards now is amplifying the.
Message What i've been working so diligently and so many
of my peers is for people to understand that tap
is more than, entertainment that tap dancing is more than
just people dancing in. UNISON i want people to know
that tap dancing is a really sophisticated and beautiful, expression musical.
(16:10):
Expression it thrives off of music and. Freedom you're connected
to something else that nobody can really take away from.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
You ayodeli hopes to keep expanding people's understanding of tap.
Dancing she wants to bring the art form to a larger.
Audience this episode was produced By Maria eskinka and edited
(16:54):
By Met Trevlon. Shahi it was mixed By Julia, carusso
with engineering support From Jay. Grubin The LATINO usa team
also Includes Roxanna, Guire Fernando, Chavari Jessica, Ellis Victoria, Strada,
Dominiquinestrosa renaldo Leanoz, Junior Stephanie, Lebau Andrea Lopez, Grusado Luis,
(17:15):
Luna Marta, Martinez Dasha, Sandoval Lor saudi And Nancy, Trujillo Benileei,
Ramirez Marlon, Bishop Maria garcia and myself are co executive
producers And i'm your. Host Marianno. Rossa join us again
on our next. Episode in the, Meantime i'll see you
on social media and as, always notte Maa, yes Lunga.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Jao LATINO usa is made possible in part by The Ford,
foundation working with visionaries on the front lines of social change,
worldwide The JOHN.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
D And CATHERINE.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
T MacArthur, foundation and The Heising Simons foundation unlocking, knowledge
opportunity and possibilities more at hsfoundation dot.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Org i've rarely, stretched And i'm not proud of. That
and whoever's listening and wants to be a tab, answer
don't take that. Advice please stretch and roll
This is me.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
So my entry point to it was Ginger Rogers, but
really this is my legacy.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This art form is my legacy.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
From futro media and pox. It's Latino Usa. I'm Maria
nor Posa today, a yodel Cacil, the decorated Afro Latina
tap dancer and how her art is part of her legacy.
For Ayodelic Cascill, tap dancing is not just a series
(00:37):
of steps, it's magic. It's when she feels the most
free and is able to connect to her cultural heritage.
The Bronx native was born to a Puerto Rican mother
and a Black father. She discovered tap through the silver
screen at a young age, transfixed by Fred Astaire and
Ginger Rogers, so much so that she started recreating their
(00:59):
move in her Bronx bedroom. But it wasn't until she
was a sophomore at the NYU Tish School of the
Arts that she took her first tap dancing class, and
she's been dancing ever since. During her almost three decade
long career, Ayodetta has received a number of accolades and awards,
(01:20):
despite the field being dominated by male dancers. Ayodette was
the first woman to be invited to dance for Savion
Glover's Not Your Ordinary Tap Dancers group, and she's performed
in places like the White House, Radio City Music Hall,
and Carnegie Hall. In twenty nineteen, she was featured in
a series of forever stamps from the US Post Office,
(01:42):
the Black Heritage Stamp Series. A documentary about Ayodeeda's development
as an artist, titled Tapping Into Our Past Tapping Into
Our Future, premiered in twenty twenty two. In that same year,
Ayodeeda's tap choreography in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl
earned her a Drama Desque nomination. Her work calls attention
(02:07):
to how tap dancing is an expression of identity, culture, language,
and communication, but also to the forgotten history of black
tap dancers. Here's Iodlica said as she taps us through
her journey in a story we first aired in twenty
twenty one.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
My name is Iodele Cassell.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I am a tap dancer, choreographer, actor, lover of tesla
and stake. My name means joy has arrived and it
is Nigerian Yoruba.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
My father named me. It's one of my favorite things.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
I am a native New Yorker, proud Bronx native. When
I was nine, my mom sent me to Puerto Rico
to live with my grandparents.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
What I do remember the most, at least for.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
That initial landing, was feeling like, how am I going
to communicate?
Speaker 1 (03:06):
I didn't speak the language at all. I knew one word.
I knew how to say ola, and that was it.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
My grandparents didn't speak English that well, and my grandmother
would teach me with like a letter stencil, who doosday
squadro one thing at a time. While I remember struggling
with the language, there was a seamless transition of when
you just are speaking it fluently. And I was there
until I was fifteen. I was supposed to be there
for one year and ended up being six. At the
(03:32):
age of seventeen, I was a senior in high school.
My English teacher she started a course called history with
the movies. That's when I first saw FREDI standing Gerrogers.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
You know, I think I was in lovely Van Hook.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
I know, you were.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
This world that seemed really interesting to me.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Like I thought Fred and Ginger were like magic, so graceful,
and they had such great chemistry.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
It was just like it was beautiful to watch.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
There's something in the format of a musical that is
sort of fantastical, and as somebody who just did not
grow up seeing that, it was really intriguing. And then
of course tap dancing, if you don't know what goes
into it, it is a little bit like magic. It's
like you see people like moving their feet and all
of these sounds are coming out. I just wanted to
(04:22):
be able to move my feet in the way that
they did. And I remember like I would go home
after school and I'd go to the library to like
rent their movies, and I just close the door and
try to move like they were.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
What if I could do that?
Speaker 2 (04:38):
What if I could be Ginger fully knowing that there's
no way that this black and Puerto Rican girl was
gonna ever be considered anything like Ginger Rogers, because I
didn't see people like me who were on screen like that,
especially during those thirties and forties and fifties. So I
remember just sort of that being a fantasy. And then
I was an acting major at YU and my sophomore
(04:58):
year they offered two movement classes that the actors had
to take, and it was tap dancing and tai chi,
And I was like oh yeah, Oh my God, Like, finally,
this is going to be my chance to really get
to move my feet in the way that I saw
Ginger Rogers doing. So I signed up for tap immediately,
and I even got like some shoes that looked like
one of her shoes in the movie. I went to
(05:20):
pay Less shoe source, because you know, the dance school
has cheesy shoes. I got these really cool like heel
suede shoess and I got them tapped up, and I
felt like I walked into my first class in style.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
And I was so happy to do my first shuffle.
I was living my life.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
About a year after that, I met someone who was
a freshman and he was actually a real hood for
His name is Bookarie Wilder.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
He was like, yeah, you Tap dance. I was like yeah.
He was like, oh, we should go jam. I was like, yeah,
let's go.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Jam. He took me to that studio and I'm putting
up my shoes with my shuffle hopstep for lap ball change,
just all of the joy and the spirit in the world.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
As I'm lacing up, he starts to warm up. I
heard him go I had never heard that ever. I
had heard Dad Dee d d day. So I realized
very quickly that I did not know what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
It was a really formative time and really impactful because
he was like, oh, wait a minute, you know Gregory Hines, right,
And I was like, no, I don't know him.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Do you know, like Sammy Davis Junior. I'm like, god,
I didn't know know the Nicholas Brothers. No, he said,
tap dancing is.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Not just a series of steps, and it's not combinations
that you do in dance class. This is a real
form of expression because it comes from you. He's like,
you don't even need music. He taught me that this
art form was really rooted in the history of black
people in this country, that it.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Is my legacy.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
I think this art form of tap dancing speaks really
directly to the history of this country and lands squarely
at the intersection of race and gender and appropriation. And
we talk about the development of the slave codes of
seventeen forty, for example, born out of the rebellion that
black people in this country they knew rhythm. They were
(07:27):
so connected to their power in that way that they
could start revolts across plantations through communicating with specific rhythms
and so when that was discovered, laws were enacted in
this country to basically ban them.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
What I love about that story.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
Even though it's completely steeped in oppression and a dehumanization,
is that the spirit of a human being, in the
spirit of black people, that what happens when somebody attempts
to take away your mode of expression and to take
away your instrument, you find another way. You're not gonna
give me a drama. I can make sound with my feet,
(08:09):
I can make sound with my body, I can make.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
Sound with my hands.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
The one thing you learn very quickly as a tap
dance student is that it thrives on your individual expression.
If I could describe it for somebody who doesn't do it,
is like if you have an impulse and then naturally
something starts to build and you get ideas that are
(08:35):
in rhythm form and your feet are able to communicate that.
So we have steps that have a different number of notes.
For example, a step is just one note. A shuffle
has two sounds, shuffule one two. A cramp roll has
four sounds. It starts to boil up into a rhythmic pattern,
(09:01):
and it's influenced by really your upbringing. I grew up
listening to Hector Lavo to Ray Boretto, and I grew
up listening to Orestis and Fania All Stars. And I
also grew up in the nineties, which is like the
height of hip hop. Everything that has entered your ear
(09:23):
has become part of your makeup, is available to you
when you get this impulse to move.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
So if I had sad, Sad, dad, and then I can.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Go on and on and on. But all of these
things just live there and they are available to you
to come out in whichever way that.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
You so choose.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
I think it was the beginning of a journey of
really getting to know myself as a human being. But
what made me think I can do this forever as
a career was when I saw Bringing the Noise in
the Funk at the Public Theater in ninety five. Bringing
the Noise, Bringing the Funk basically told the history of
Black people in this country through tap dancing from the
(10:12):
Middle Passage all the way through current times.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
It was revolutionary because it was the.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
First time that tap dancing was seen and heard in
a way that was not common like the way that
we think of tap dancing as like timesteps and everybody
in Unison with arm choreography, kind of like forty second.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Street type thing.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
It was really a true authentic representation of how the
form was living in America. And when I went to
that show and I saw young black actors, young black
tap dancers really on stage like having a story that
was told through them at a theater that was around
(10:53):
the corner from my school, That's when I thought, Oh,
I want to do that. And not only do I
want to do that, but I want to do it
to the best of my ability and I want to
dance with the best. And that is when I first
saw a way to do this long term. When I
started to dance professionally and I happened to come up
(11:14):
at a time when the focus was on a lot
of young men.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
The audience members at.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
The end of the show would say to me, I
did not know that women's have danced, or they'd be
like you, girl, you dance like a man. They would
say this as though they were giving me compliments. So
it was that moment of constantly hearing other people say
those things that made me look for the women that
look like me. Because I knew about ginger rogers and
Eleanor Powell and Vooby Keeler, and I knew about all
those women, but I didn't know of Jenny Legan. I
(11:42):
did not know of Lois Bright, I did not know
about Juanita Pits. I started to call out these names
just as I was learning them, and I would just
say Cora La Red, Juanita Pits, Louise Madison. I feel
like I can't change the past. What I can do
is I can bring them into my experience so that
when people see me tap dance, they understand that I
(12:02):
didn't just get plopped here, and there is a legacy
of women behind me who were doing it and who
should be named and recognized. It has become a practice
for me over the last twenty five years. I hold
them with me anytime that I'm dancing. Then we could
talk about appropriation, how a lot of the white dancers
(12:23):
were royalistic in these black communities and taking their work
and performing it while black people did not have the
right and ability to perform themselves. Even when we talk
about the silver Screen, we know Fredistang and Gerrogers, and
we celebrate Freda Stair very easily, but we don't know
that one of his teachers was John Bubbles, who was
a black dancer who actually revolutionized the art form by
(12:45):
dropping his heels into the ground and allowing more.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Notes to be played with his feet.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
We don't know about Jenny Leaghan, a black tap dancer
who's actually the first black woman to dance with Bill Robinson,
who was a huge star at the time. But we
know Shirley Temple, we know oh Sammy Davis Junior and
Jimmy Slide and Buster Brown and Chuck Green and all wonderful,
beautiful tap dancers, but we don't know the women that
were their contemporaries, their colleagues who were also trying to
(13:13):
work in the same way. Really, the one of my
missions is to really transform the way people view tap dancing.
So I'm happy that Chasing Magic kind of allowed that
(13:36):
window into that. We were invited by Aaron Maddox at
the Joyce Theater. Aaron reached out and said, Hey, do
you want to do something for our virtual season? And
I was like, I haven't seen any of my friends,
and I thought, well, how are we going to do this?
I sent tapes, just video recordings of some choreography, and
we had one day of rehearsal and then two days
(13:59):
of actual shooting and that was it.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
So it came together like magic, actually very quickly.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
But because we had really wonderful, committed and focused and
generous dancers, we made it happen. And Chasing Magic, you'll
see solos, duets, trios, You'll see full group numbers. We're
(14:28):
gonna see numbers that are a cappella, numbers that swing
Latin jazz.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
You're gonna hear an African and six' eight rhythm just
done with our.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Feet we're gonna dance to a soft shoe and a
waltz and we're gonna like really hit it. Hard What
i'm trying to do is just show really the depth
of the art form and how much we.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Can accomplish with just two pieces of metal on our.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
FEET i Think Chasing magic is a celebration of, collaboration, friendship, art,
life honoring our, experiences honoring our, history and just like
how all those elements sort of come together to really
create these little magical. Moments i've read a lot of
things lately about agism and, dance and one of the
(15:17):
things That i'm really inspired by about tap dancing is
that we dance until we no longer, can whether you're
into your eighties or your. NINETIES i grew up knowing
that the older you, get the better you, get and
So i've never felt, like, OH i got to get
make sure that to get all my things Before i'm
thirty or Before i'm. Forty IF i feel like tap
(15:39):
dancing is one of those art forms that it's like,
wine you get better with, AGE.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I think one of the.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Things THAT i have been building towards now is amplifying the.
Message What i've been working so diligently and so many
of my peers is for people to understand that tap
is more than, entertainment that tap dancing is more than
just people dancing in. UNISON i want people to know
that tap dancing is a really sophisticated and beautiful, expression musical.
(16:10):
Expression it thrives off of music and. Freedom you're connected
to something else that nobody can really take away from.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
You ayodeli hopes to keep expanding people's understanding of tap.
Dancing she wants to bring the art form to a larger.
Audience this episode was produced By Maria eskinka and edited
(16:54):
By Met Trevlon. Shahi it was mixed By Julia, carusso
with engineering support From Jay. Grubin The LATINO usa team
also Includes Roxanna, Guire Fernando, Chavari Jessica, Ellis Victoria, Strada,
Dominiquinestrosa renaldo Leanoz, Junior Stephanie, Lebau Andrea Lopez, Grusado Luis,
(17:15):
Luna Marta, Martinez Dasha, Sandoval Lor saudi And Nancy, Trujillo Benileei,
Ramirez Marlon, Bishop Maria garcia and myself are co executive
producers And i'm your. Host Marianno. Rossa join us again
on our next. Episode in the, Meantime i'll see you
on social media and as, always notte Maa, yes Lunga.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
Jao LATINO usa is made possible in part by The Ford,
foundation working with visionaries on the front lines of social change,
worldwide The JOHN.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
D And CATHERINE.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
T MacArthur, foundation and The Heising Simons foundation unlocking, knowledge
opportunity and possibilities more at hsfoundation dot.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Org i've rarely, stretched And i'm not proud of. That
and whoever's listening and wants to be a tab, answer
don't take that. Advice please stretch and roll
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