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Speaker 1: This is me.

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Speaker 2: So my entry point to it was Ginger Rogers, but

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Speaker 2: really this is my legacy.

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Speaker 1: This art form is my legacy.

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Speaker 3: From futro media and pox. It's Latino Usa. I'm Maria

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Speaker 3: nor Posa today, a yodel Cacil, the decorated Afro Latina

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Speaker 3: tap dancer and how her art is part of her legacy.

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Speaker 3: For Ayodelic Cascill, tap dancing is not just a series

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Speaker 3: of steps, it's magic. It's when she feels the most

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Speaker 3: free and is able to connect to her cultural heritage.

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Speaker 3: The Bronx native was born to a Puerto Rican mother

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Speaker 3: and a Black father. She discovered tap through the silver

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Speaker 3: screen at a young age, transfixed by Fred Astaire and

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Speaker 3: Ginger Rogers, so much so that she started recreating their

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Speaker 3: move in her Bronx bedroom. But it wasn't until she

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Speaker 3: was a sophomore at the NYU Tish School of the

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Speaker 3: Arts that she took her first tap dancing class, and

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Speaker 3: she's been dancing ever since. During her almost three decade

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Speaker 3: long career, Ayodetta has received a number of accolades and awards,

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Speaker 3: despite the field being dominated by male dancers. Ayodette was

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Speaker 3: the first woman to be invited to dance for Savion

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Speaker 3: Glover's Not Your Ordinary Tap Dancers group, and she's performed

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Speaker 3: in places like the White House, Radio City Music Hall,

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Speaker 3: and Carnegie Hall. In twenty nineteen, she was featured in

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Speaker 3: a series of forever stamps from the US Post Office,

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Speaker 3: the Black Heritage Stamp Series. A documentary about Ayodeeda's development

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Speaker 3: as an artist, titled Tapping Into Our Past Tapping Into

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Speaker 3: Our Future, premiered in twenty twenty two. In that same year,

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Speaker 3: Ayodeeda's tap choreography in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl

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Speaker 3: earned her a Drama Desque nomination. Her work calls attention

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Speaker 3: to how tap dancing is an expression of identity, culture, language,

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Speaker 3: and communication, but also to the forgotten history of black

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Speaker 3: tap dancers. Here's Iodlica said as she taps us through

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Speaker 3: her journey in a story we first aired in twenty

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Speaker 3: twenty one.

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Speaker 1: My name is Iodele Cassell.

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Speaker 2: I am a tap dancer, choreographer, actor, lover of tesla

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Speaker 2: and stake. My name means joy has arrived and it

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Speaker 2: is Nigerian Yoruba.

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Speaker 1: My father named me. It's one of my favorite things.

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Speaker 2: I am a native New Yorker, proud Bronx native. When

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Speaker 2: I was nine, my mom sent me to Puerto Rico

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Speaker 2: to live with my grandparents.

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Speaker 1: What I do remember the most, at least for.

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Speaker 2: That initial landing, was feeling like, how am I going

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Speaker 2: to communicate?

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Speaker 1: I didn't speak the language at all. I knew one word.

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Speaker 1: I knew how to say ola, and that was it.

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Speaker 2: My grandparents didn't speak English that well, and my grandmother

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Speaker 2: would teach me with like a letter stencil, who doosday

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Speaker 2: squadro one thing at a time. While I remember struggling

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Speaker 2: with the language, there was a seamless transition of when

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Speaker 2: you just are speaking it fluently. And I was there

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Speaker 2: until I was fifteen. I was supposed to be there

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Speaker 2: for one year and ended up being six. At the

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Speaker 2: age of seventeen, I was a senior in high school.

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Speaker 2: My English teacher she started a course called history with

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Speaker 2: the movies. That's when I first saw FREDI standing Gerrogers.

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Speaker 1: You know, I think I was in lovely Van Hook.

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Speaker 3: I know, you were.

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Speaker 1: This world that seemed really interesting to me.

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Speaker 2: Like I thought Fred and Ginger were like magic, so graceful,

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Speaker 2: and they had such great chemistry.

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Speaker 1: It was just like it was beautiful to watch.

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Speaker 2: There's something in the format of a musical that is

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Speaker 2: sort of fantastical, and as somebody who just did not

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Speaker 2: grow up seeing that, it was really intriguing. And then

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Speaker 2: of course tap dancing, if you don't know what goes

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Speaker 2: into it, it is a little bit like magic. It's

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Speaker 2: like you see people like moving their feet and all

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Speaker 2: of these sounds are coming out. I just wanted to

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Speaker 2: be able to move my feet in the way that

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Speaker 2: they did. And I remember like I would go home

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Speaker 2: after school and I'd go to the library to like

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Speaker 2: rent their movies, and I just close the door and

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Speaker 2: try to move like they were.

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Speaker 1: What if I could do that?

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Speaker 2: What if I could be Ginger fully knowing that there's

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Speaker 2: no way that this black and Puerto Rican girl was

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Speaker 2: gonna ever be considered anything like Ginger Rogers, because I

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Speaker 2: didn't see people like me who were on screen like that,

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Speaker 2: especially during those thirties and forties and fifties. So I

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Speaker 2: remember just sort of that being a fantasy. And then

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Speaker 2: I was an acting major at YU and my sophomore

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Speaker 2: year they offered two movement classes that the actors had

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Speaker 2: to take, and it was tap dancing and tai chi,

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Speaker 2: And I was like oh yeah, Oh my God, Like, finally,

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Speaker 2: this is going to be my chance to really get

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Speaker 2: to move my feet in the way that I saw

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Speaker 2: Ginger Rogers doing. So I signed up for tap immediately,

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Speaker 2: and I even got like some shoes that looked like

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Speaker 2: one of her shoes in the movie. I went to

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Speaker 2: pay Less shoe source, because you know, the dance school

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Speaker 2: has cheesy shoes. I got these really cool like heel

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Speaker 2: suede shoess and I got them tapped up, and I

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Speaker 2: felt like I walked into my first class in style.

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Speaker 1: And I was so happy to do my first shuffle.

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Speaker 1: I was living my life.

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Speaker 2: About a year after that, I met someone who was

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Speaker 2: a freshman and he was actually a real hood for

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Speaker 2: His name is Bookarie Wilder.

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Speaker 1: He was like, yeah, you Tap dance. I was like yeah.

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Speaker 1: He was like, oh, we should go jam. I was like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: let's go.

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Speaker 2: Jam. He took me to that studio and I'm putting

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Speaker 2: up my shoes with my shuffle hopstep for lap ball change,

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Speaker 2: just all of the joy and the spirit in the world.

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Speaker 1: As I'm lacing up, he starts to warm up. I

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Speaker 1: heard him go I had never heard that ever. I

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Speaker 1: had heard Dad Dee d d day. So I realized

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Speaker 1: very quickly that I did not know what I was doing.

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Speaker 2: It was a really formative time and really impactful because

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Speaker 2: he was like, oh, wait a minute, you know Gregory Hines, right,

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Speaker 2: And I was like, no, I don't know him.

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Speaker 1: Do you know, like Sammy Davis Junior. I'm like, god,

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Speaker 1: I didn't know know the Nicholas Brothers. No, he said,

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Speaker 1: tap dancing is.

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Speaker 2: Not just a series of steps, and it's not combinations

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Speaker 2: that you do in dance class. This is a real

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Speaker 2: form of expression because it comes from you. He's like,

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Speaker 2: you don't even need music. He taught me that this

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Speaker 2: art form was really rooted in the history of black

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Speaker 2: people in this country, that it.

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Speaker 1: Is my legacy.

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Speaker 2: I think this art form of tap dancing speaks really

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Speaker 2: directly to the history of this country and lands squarely

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Speaker 2: at the intersection of race and gender and appropriation. And

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Speaker 2: we talk about the development of the slave codes of

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Speaker 2: seventeen forty, for example, born out of the rebellion that

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Speaker 2: black people in this country they knew rhythm. They were

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Speaker 2: so connected to their power in that way that they

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Speaker 2: could start revolts across plantations through communicating with specific rhythms

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Speaker 2: and so when that was discovered, laws were enacted in

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Speaker 2: this country to basically ban them.

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Speaker 1: What I love about that story.

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Speaker 2: Even though it's completely steeped in oppression and a dehumanization,

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Speaker 2: is that the spirit of a human being, in the

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Speaker 2: spirit of black people, that what happens when somebody attempts

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Speaker 2: to take away your mode of expression and to take

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Speaker 2: away your instrument, you find another way. You're not gonna

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Speaker 2: give me a drama. I can make sound with my feet,

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Speaker 2: I can make sound with my body, I can make.

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Speaker 1: Sound with my hands.

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Speaker 2: The one thing you learn very quickly as a tap

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Speaker 2: dance student is that it thrives on your individual expression.

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Speaker 2: If I could describe it for somebody who doesn't do it,

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Speaker 2: is like if you have an impulse and then naturally

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Speaker 2: something starts to build and you get ideas that are

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Speaker 2: in rhythm form and your feet are able to communicate that.

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Speaker 2: So we have steps that have a different number of notes.

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Speaker 2: For example, a step is just one note. A shuffle

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Speaker 2: has two sounds, shuffule one two. A cramp roll has

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Speaker 2: four sounds. It starts to boil up into a rhythmic pattern,

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Speaker 2: and it's influenced by really your upbringing. I grew up

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Speaker 2: listening to Hector Lavo to Ray Boretto, and I grew

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Speaker 2: up listening to Orestis and Fania All Stars. And I

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Speaker 2: also grew up in the nineties, which is like the

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Speaker 2: height of hip hop. Everything that has entered your ear

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Speaker 2: has become part of your makeup, is available to you

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Speaker 2: when you get this impulse to move.

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Speaker 1: So if I had sad, Sad, dad, and then I can.

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Speaker 2: Go on and on and on. But all of these

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Speaker 2: things just live there and they are available to you

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Speaker 2: to come out in whichever way that.

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Speaker 1: You so choose.

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Speaker 2: I think it was the beginning of a journey of

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Speaker 2: really getting to know myself as a human being. But

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Speaker 2: what made me think I can do this forever as

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Speaker 2: a career was when I saw Bringing the Noise in

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Speaker 2: the Funk at the Public Theater in ninety five. Bringing

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Speaker 2: the Noise, Bringing the Funk basically told the history of

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Speaker 2: Black people in this country through tap dancing from the

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Speaker 2: Middle Passage all the way through current times.

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Speaker 1: It was revolutionary because it was the.

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Speaker 2: First time that tap dancing was seen and heard in

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Speaker 2: a way that was not common like the way that

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Speaker 2: we think of tap dancing as like timesteps and everybody

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Speaker 2: in Unison with arm choreography, kind of like forty second.

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Speaker 1: Street type thing.

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Speaker 2: It was really a true authentic representation of how the

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Speaker 2: form was living in America. And when I went to

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Speaker 2: that show and I saw young black actors, young black

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Speaker 2: tap dancers really on stage like having a story that

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Speaker 2: was told through them at a theater that was around

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Speaker 2: the corner from my school, That's when I thought, Oh,

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Speaker 2: I want to do that. And not only do I

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Speaker 2: want to do that, but I want to do it

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Speaker 2: to the best of my ability and I want to

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Speaker 2: dance with the best. And that is when I first

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Speaker 2: saw a way to do this long term. When I

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Speaker 2: started to dance professionally and I happened to come up

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Speaker 2: at a time when the focus was on a lot

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Speaker 2: of young men.

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Speaker 1: The audience members at.

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Speaker 2: The end of the show would say to me, I

196
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Speaker 2: did not know that women's have danced, or they'd be

197
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Speaker 2: like you, girl, you dance like a man. They would

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Speaker 2: say this as though they were giving me compliments. So

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Speaker 2: it was that moment of constantly hearing other people say

200
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Speaker 2: those things that made me look for the women that

201
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Speaker 2: look like me. Because I knew about ginger rogers and

202
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Speaker 2: Eleanor Powell and Vooby Keeler, and I knew about all

203
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Speaker 2: those women, but I didn't know of Jenny Legan. I

204
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Speaker 2: did not know of Lois Bright, I did not know

205
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Speaker 2: about Juanita Pits. I started to call out these names

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Speaker 2: just as I was learning them, and I would just

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Speaker 2: say Cora La Red, Juanita Pits, Louise Madison. I feel

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Speaker 2: like I can't change the past. What I can do

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Speaker 2: is I can bring them into my experience so that

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Speaker 2: when people see me tap dance, they understand that I

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Speaker 2: didn't just get plopped here, and there is a legacy

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Speaker 2: of women behind me who were doing it and who

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Speaker 2: should be named and recognized. It has become a practice

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Speaker 2: for me over the last twenty five years. I hold

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Speaker 2: them with me anytime that I'm dancing. Then we could

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Speaker 2: talk about appropriation, how a lot of the white dancers

217
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Speaker 2: were royalistic in these black communities and taking their work

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Speaker 2: and performing it while black people did not have the

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Speaker 2: right and ability to perform themselves. Even when we talk

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Speaker 2: about the silver Screen, we know Fredistang and Gerrogers, and

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Speaker 2: we celebrate Freda Stair very easily, but we don't know

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Speaker 2: that one of his teachers was John Bubbles, who was

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Speaker 2: a black dancer who actually revolutionized the art form by

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Speaker 2: dropping his heels into the ground and allowing more.

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Speaker 1: Notes to be played with his feet.

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Speaker 2: We don't know about Jenny Leaghan, a black tap dancer

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Speaker 2: who's actually the first black woman to dance with Bill Robinson,

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Speaker 2: who was a huge star at the time. But we

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Speaker 2: know Shirley Temple, we know oh Sammy Davis Junior and

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Speaker 2: Jimmy Slide and Buster Brown and Chuck Green and all wonderful,

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Speaker 2: beautiful tap dancers, but we don't know the women that

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Speaker 2: were their contemporaries, their colleagues who were also trying to

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Speaker 2: work in the same way. Really, the one of my

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Speaker 2: missions is to really transform the way people view tap dancing.

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Speaker 2: So I'm happy that Chasing Magic kind of allowed that

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Speaker 2: window into that. We were invited by Aaron Maddox at

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Speaker 2: the Joyce Theater. Aaron reached out and said, Hey, do

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Speaker 2: you want to do something for our virtual season? And

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Speaker 2: I was like, I haven't seen any of my friends,

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Speaker 2: and I thought, well, how are we going to do this?

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Speaker 2: I sent tapes, just video recordings of some choreography, and

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Speaker 2: we had one day of rehearsal and then two days

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Speaker 2: of actual shooting and that was it.

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Speaker 1: So it came together like magic, actually very quickly.

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Speaker 2: But because we had really wonderful, committed and focused and

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Speaker 2: generous dancers, we made it happen. And Chasing Magic, you'll

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Speaker 2: see solos, duets, trios, You'll see full group numbers. We're

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Speaker 2: gonna see numbers that are a cappella, numbers that swing

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Speaker 2: Latin jazz.

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Speaker 1: You're gonna hear an African and six' eight rhythm just

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Speaker 1: done with our.

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Speaker 2: Feet we're gonna dance to a soft shoe and a

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Speaker 2: waltz and we're gonna like really hit it. Hard What

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Speaker 2: i'm trying to do is just show really the depth

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Speaker 2: of the art form and how much we.

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Speaker 1: Can accomplish with just two pieces of metal on our.

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Speaker 2: FEET i Think Chasing magic is a celebration of, collaboration, friendship, art,

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Speaker 2: life honoring our, experiences honoring our, history and just like

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Speaker 2: how all those elements sort of come together to really

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Speaker 2: create these little magical. Moments i've read a lot of

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Speaker 2: things lately about agism and, dance and one of the

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Speaker 2: things That i'm really inspired by about tap dancing is

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Speaker 2: that we dance until we no longer, can whether you're

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Speaker 2: into your eighties or your. NINETIES i grew up knowing

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Speaker 2: that the older you, get the better you, get and

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Speaker 2: So i've never felt, like, OH i got to get

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Speaker 2: make sure that to get all my things Before i'm

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Speaker 2: thirty or Before i'm. Forty IF i feel like tap

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Speaker 2: dancing is one of those art forms that it's like,

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Speaker 2: wine you get better with, AGE.

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Speaker 1: I think one of the.

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Speaker 2: Things THAT i have been building towards now is amplifying the.

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Speaker 2: Message What i've been working so diligently and so many

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Speaker 2: of my peers is for people to understand that tap

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Speaker 2: is more than, entertainment that tap dancing is more than

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Speaker 2: just people dancing in. UNISON i want people to know

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Speaker 2: that tap dancing is a really sophisticated and beautiful, expression musical.

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Speaker 2: Expression it thrives off of music and. Freedom you're connected

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Speaker 2: to something else that nobody can really take away from.

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Speaker 3: You ayodeli hopes to keep expanding people's understanding of tap.

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Speaker 3: Dancing she wants to bring the art form to a larger.

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Speaker 3: Audience this episode was produced By Maria eskinka and edited

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Speaker 3: By Met Trevlon. Shahi it was mixed By Julia, carusso

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Speaker 3: with engineering support From Jay. Grubin The LATINO usa team

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Speaker 3: also Includes Roxanna, Guire Fernando, Chavari Jessica, Ellis Victoria, Strada,

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Speaker 3: Dominiquinestrosa renaldo Leanoz, Junior Stephanie, Lebau Andrea Lopez, Grusado Luis,

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Speaker 3: Luna Marta, Martinez Dasha, Sandoval Lor saudi And Nancy, Trujillo Benileei,

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Speaker 3: Ramirez Marlon, Bishop Maria garcia and myself are co executive

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Speaker 3: producers And i'm your. Host Marianno. Rossa join us again

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Speaker 3: on our next. Episode in the, Meantime i'll see you

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Speaker 3: on social media and as, always notte Maa, yes Lunga.

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Speaker 4: Jao LATINO usa is made possible in part by The Ford,

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Speaker 4: foundation working with visionaries on the front lines of social change,

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Speaker 4: worldwide The JOHN.

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Speaker 1: D And CATHERINE.

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Speaker 4: T MacArthur, foundation and The Heising Simons foundation unlocking, knowledge

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Speaker 4: opportunity and possibilities more at hsfoundation dot.

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Speaker 2: Org i've rarely, stretched And i'm not proud of. That

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Speaker 2: and whoever's listening and wants to be a tab, answer

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Speaker 2: don't take that. Advice please stretch and roll