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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. This art form is my legacy.

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Speaker 1: From futuro media.

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Speaker 3: It's Latino Usa I Maria no Josa today. Ayodeli Cassel,

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Speaker 3: the decorated Afro Latina tap dancer, on how tap dancing

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Speaker 3: is a part of her legacy. For Ayodelic Cassel, tap

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Speaker 3: dancing is not just a series of steps. For her,

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Speaker 3: it's magic. It's when she feels the most free and

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Speaker 3: able to connect to her cultural heritage. The Bronx native

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Speaker 3: was born to a Puerto Rican mother and a Black father,

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Speaker 3: and at a young age she discovered tap through the

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Speaker 3: silver screen transfixed by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. She

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Speaker 3: started recreating their moves in her bedroom, but it wasn't

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Speaker 3: until she was a sophomore at the NYU Tish School

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Speaker 3: of the Arts that she took her first tap dancing class.

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Speaker 3: She was an acting major at the time, but that

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Speaker 3: class changed the course of her life and she's been

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Speaker 3: tap dancing pretty much NonStop for the last twenty six years.

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Speaker 3: Since then, she's received a number of accolades and awards,

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Speaker 3: despite the field being dominated by male dancers, Ayodele was

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

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Speaker 3: not your ordinary tap Dancers group, and performed in places

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Speaker 3: like the White House, Radio City Music Hall, and Carnegie Hall.

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Speaker 3: Her work calls attention to how tap dancing is an

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Speaker 3: expression of identity, culture, language and communication, and also the

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Speaker 3: forgotten history of blood tap dancers. On today's episode of

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Speaker 3: How I Made It, Ayodele discusses the black roots of

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Speaker 3: tap dancing and her own journey into the art form.

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Speaker 1: Here's Ayodele Cassel. 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 steak. My name means joy has arrived and it

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Speaker 2: is Nigerian Yoruba. My father named me. It's one of

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Speaker 2: my favorite things. I am a native New Yorker, proud

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Speaker 2: Bronx native. When I was nine, my mom sent me

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Speaker 2: to Puerto Rico to live with my grandparents. What I

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Speaker 2: do remember the most, at least for that initial landing,

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Speaker 2: was feeling like, how am I going 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 ut her stencil, who

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Speaker 2: know those today squadro one thing at a time. While

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Speaker 2: I remember struggling with the language, there was a seamless

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Speaker 2: transition of when you just are speaking it fluently. And

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

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Speaker 2: to be there for one year and ended up being six.

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Speaker 2: At the age of seventeen, I was a senior in

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Speaker 2: high school. My English teacher she started a course called

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Speaker 2: history of the Movies. That's when I first saw Fredi

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Speaker 2: Stan Ginger Rogers.

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Speaker 1: You know, I think I was lovely a van hook.

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Speaker 1: I know, you were this world that seemed really interesting

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Speaker 1: 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. It was just like

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Speaker 2: it was beautiful to watch. There's something in the format

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Speaker 2: of a musical that is sort of fantastical, and as

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Speaker 2: somebody who just did not grow up seeing that, it

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Speaker 2: was really intriguing. And then of course tap dancing, if

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Speaker 2: you don't know what goes into it, it is a

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Speaker 2: little bit like magic. It's like you see people like

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Speaker 2: moving their feet and all of these sounds are coming out.

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Speaker 2: I just wanted to be able to move my feet

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Speaker 2: in the way that they did. And I remember like

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Speaker 2: I would go home after school and I'd go to

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Speaker 2: the library to like rent their movies, and I just

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Speaker 2: close the door and try to move like they were.

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Speaker 1: What if I could do that, what if I could be.

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Speaker 2: Ginger fully knowing that there's no way that this black

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Speaker 2: and Puerto Rican girl was gonna ever be considered anything

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Speaker 2: like Ginger Rogers because I didn't see people like me

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Speaker 2: who were on screen like that, especially during those thirties

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Speaker 2: and forties and fifties.

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Speaker 1: I remember just sort of that being a fantasy.

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Speaker 2: And then I was an acting major at YU and

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Speaker 2: my sophomore year they offered two movement classes that the

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Speaker 2: actors had to take, and it was tap dancing and

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Speaker 2: tai chi, and I was like, oh yeah, oh my god,

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Speaker 2: I finally this is gonna be my chance to really

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

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Speaker 2: saw Ginger Rogers doing.

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Speaker 1: So I signed up for tapp imediately, and.

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

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

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Speaker 2: Less shoe source because you know, dance school has cheesy shoes.

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Speaker 2: I got these really cool, like heel suede shoes and

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Speaker 2: I got them tapped up, and I felt like I

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Speaker 2: 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 Bokarie Wilder. He was like, yeah, you

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Speaker 2: tap dance. I was like yeah. He was like, oh,

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Speaker 2: we should go jam. I was like, yeah, let's go jam.

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

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Speaker 2: 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 leasing up, he starts to warm up. I

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

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Speaker 2: I had heard Dade Deep d d Da Dee da da.

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Speaker 2: So I realized very quickly that I did not know

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Speaker 2: what I was doing. It was a really formative time

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Speaker 2: and really impactful because he was like, oh, wait a minute,

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Speaker 2: you know Gregory Hines, right, And I was like, no,

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Speaker 2: I don't know him, do you know, like Sammy Davis Junior.

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Speaker 2: I'm like, God, I don't know know the Nicholas Brothers. No,

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Speaker 2: he said, tap dancing is not just a series of steps,

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Speaker 2: and it's not combinations that you do in dance class.

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Speaker 2: This is a real form of expression because it comes

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Speaker 2: from you.

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Speaker 1: He's like, you don't even need music.

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Speaker 2: He taught me that this art form was really rooted

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Speaker 2: in the history of black people in this country, that

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Speaker 2: it is my legacy. I think this art form of

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Speaker 2: tap dancing speaks really directly to the history of this

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Speaker 2: country and lands squarely at the intersection of race and

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Speaker 2: gender and appropriation. And we talk about the development of

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Speaker 2: the slave Codes of seventeen forty, for example, born out

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Speaker 2: of the rebellion that black people in this country they

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Speaker 2: knew rhythm. They were so connected to their power in

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Speaker 2: that way that they could start revolts across plantations through

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Speaker 2: communicating with specific rhythms. And so when that was discovered,

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Speaker 2: laws were enacted in this country to basically ban them.

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Speaker 2: What I love about that story, even though it's completely

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Speaker 2: steeped in oppression and a dehumanization, is that the spirit

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Speaker 2: of a human being, in the spirit of black people,

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Speaker 2: that what happens when somebody attempts to take away your

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

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Speaker 1: You find another way. You're not going to give me

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Speaker 1: a drama.

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Speaker 2: I can make sound with my feet, I can make

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Speaker 2: sound with my body.

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Speaker 1: I can make 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, shuff full one two, a cramp roll

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Speaker 2: has four sounds. It starts to boil up into a

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Speaker 2: rhythmic pattern, and it's influenced by really your upbringing. I

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

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Speaker 2: I grew up listening to Orestis and Fania Alstar, and

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

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Speaker 2: the height of hip hop.

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Speaker 1: Everything that has entered your ear has become part of

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Speaker 1: your makeup is available to you. When you get this

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Speaker 1: impulse to move. So if I had Sada Sada, saka

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Speaker 1: da da da, and then I can go on and

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Speaker 1: on and on. But all of these things just live there.

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Speaker 2: And they are available to you to come out in

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Speaker 2: whichever way that you so choose.

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Speaker 1: I think it was.

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Speaker 2: The beginning of a journey of really getting to know

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Speaker 2: myself as a human being.

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Speaker 1: But what made me.

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Speaker 2: Think I can do this forever as a career was

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Speaker 2: when I saw Bringing the Noise, Bringing the Funk at

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Speaker 2: the Public Theater in ninety five. Bringing the Noise Bringing

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Speaker 2: the Funk basically told the history of Black people in

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Speaker 2: this country through tap dancing from the Middle Passage.

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Speaker 1: All the way through current times.

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Speaker 2: It was revolutionary because it was the first time that

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Speaker 2: tap dancing was seen and heard in a way that

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Speaker 2: was not common, like the way that we think of

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Speaker 2: tap dancing as like timesteps and everybody in Unison with

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Speaker 2: 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.

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Speaker 1: How the forum was living in America.

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Speaker 2: And when I went to that show and I saw

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Speaker 2: young black actors, young black tap dancers really on stage

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Speaker 2: like having a story that was told through them at.

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Speaker 1: A theater that was around the corner from my school.

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Speaker 2: That's when I thought, oh, I want to do that,

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Speaker 2: and not only do I want to do that, but

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Speaker 2: I want to do it to the best of my ability,

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Speaker 2: and I want to dance with the best. And that

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Speaker 2: is when I first saw a way to do this

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Speaker 2: long term. When I started to dance professionally, and I

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Speaker 2: happened to come up at a time when the focus

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Speaker 2: was on a lot of young men. The audience members

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

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Speaker 2: I did not know that women's tap dance, or they'd

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 2: that look like me. Because I knew about Ginger Rogers

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Speaker 2: and Eleanor Powell and Ruby Keeler, and I knew about

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

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

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

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

200
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Speaker 2: just say Coral La Red, Juanita Pitts, Louise Madison. I

201
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Speaker 2: feel like I can't change the past. What I can

202
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Speaker 2: do is I can bring them into my experience so

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 2: work and performing it while black people did not.

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Speaker 1: Have the right and ability to perform themselves.

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Speaker 2: Even when we talk about the silver Screen, we know

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Speaker 2: Fredistant and Rogers, and we celebrate Freda Stair very easily,

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Speaker 2: but we don't know that one of his teachers was

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Speaker 2: John Bubbles, who was a black dancer who actually revolutionized

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Speaker 2: the art form by dropping his heels into the ground

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Speaker 2: 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 Sammy Davis Junior and Jimmy

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Speaker 2: 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.

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Speaker 1: To work in the same way. Really asked the.

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Speaker 2: Sun, one of my missions is to really transform the

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Speaker 2: way people view tap dancing. So I'm happy that Chasing

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Speaker 2: Magic kind of allowed that window into that. We were

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Speaker 2: invited by Aaron Maddox at the Joyce Theater. Aaron reached

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Speaker 2: out and said, hey, do you want to do something

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Speaker 2: for our virtual season? And I was like, I haven't

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Speaker 2: seen any of my friends, and I thought, well, how are.

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Speaker 1: 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. So it came

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Speaker 2: together like magic, actually very quickly, but because we had

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Speaker 2: really wonderful, committed and focused and generous dancers, we made

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Speaker 2: it happen. And Chasing Magic you'll see solos, duets, trios,

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Speaker 2: you'll see.

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Speaker 1: Full group numbers. We're gonna see numbers that are a.

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Speaker 2: Cappella, numbers that swing Latin jazz. You're gonna hear an

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Speaker 2: African and six y eight rhythm.

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Speaker 1: Just done with our feet.

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Speaker 2: We're gonna dance to a soft shoe and a waltz,

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Speaker 2: and we're gonna like really hit it hard. What I'm

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Speaker 2: trying to do is just show really the depth of

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Speaker 2: the art form and how much we can accomplish with

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Speaker 2: just two pieces of metal on our feet. I think

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Speaker 2: Chasing Magic is a celebration of collaboration, friendship, art life,

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

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

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Speaker 2: these little magical moments. Read a lot of things lately

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

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Speaker 2: I'm really inspired by about tap dancing is that we

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

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Speaker 2: eighties or your nineties.

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Speaker 1: I grew up knowing that the older you get, the better.

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Speaker 2: You get, and so I've never felt like, oh, I

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Speaker 2: got to get make sure to get all my things

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Speaker 2: before I'm thirty or before I'm forty. If I feel

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Speaker 2: like tap dancing is one of those art forms that

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Speaker 2: it's like wine, you get better with age. I think

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Speaker 2: one of the things that I have been building towards

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Speaker 2: now is amplifying the message. What I've been working so

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Speaker 2: diligently and so many of my peers is for people

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

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Speaker 2: tap dancing is more than just people dancing in unison.

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Speaker 2: I want people to know that tap dancing is a

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Speaker 2: really sophisticated and beautiful expression, musical expression. It thrives off

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Speaker 2: of music and freedom. You're connected to something else that

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Speaker 2: nobody can really take away from you.

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Speaker 3: Ayodele hopes to keep expanding people's understanding of tap dancing.

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Speaker 3: She wants to bring the art form to a larger audience,

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Speaker 3: and she's got a big project that's coming up now.

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Speaker 3: She's one of the tap choreographers for the Broadway revival

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Speaker 3: of Funny Girl. This episode was produced by Maries Guinca

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Speaker 3: and edited by Mitra Bonshahi. It was mixed by julif Russo.

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Speaker 3: The Latino USA team includes Andrea Lopez Grussado, Marta Martinez,

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Speaker 3: Mike Sargent, Julieta Martinelli, Victoria Strada, Patricia sulbran Gini, montalbo

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Speaker 3: Alejandra Salasad, Renaldo Le Junior and Julia Rocha with help

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Speaker 3: from Raul Berez. Our editorial director is Julio Ricardo Barella.

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Speaker 3: Our supervising senior engineer is Stephanie Lebou, with help this

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Speaker 3: week from jj Rubin and Gabriela Bayez. Our digital editor

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Speaker 3: is Luis Luna. Our fellows are Elisa Yena, Monica Morales

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Speaker 3: and Andrew Vignals. Our theme music was composed by Zanie Rounos.

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Speaker 3: If you like the music you heard on this episode,

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Speaker 3: stop by Latinousa dot org and check out our weekly

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Speaker 3: Spotify playlist. I'm your host and executive producer Maria no Josa.

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Speaker 3: Join us again on our next episode, and in the meantime,

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Speaker 3: I'll see you on all of our social media. I

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Speaker 3: knows bemos jaou.

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Speaker 4: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Heising

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Speaker 4: Simons Foundation, Unlocking knowledge, opportunity and possibilities more at hsfoundation

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Speaker 4: dot org, the Ford Foundation, working with visionaries on the

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Speaker 4: frontlines of social change worldwide, and the John D. And

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Speaker 4: Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

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Speaker 2: I've really stretched and I'm not proud of that. And

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Speaker 2: whoever's listening and wants to be a tab answer. Don't

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Speaker 2: take that advice. Please stretch and roll,