Ayodele Casel and Arturo O'Farrill team up at The Joyce

Tap dancer Ayodele Casel
(photo: Michael Higgins)

Ayodele Casel + Arturo O'Farrill
The Joyce Theater
September 24-29

As I take my seat at the Joyce, a couple of audience members to my left peruse their programs, making note of the fact that tap artist Ayodele Casel has cast herself among her ensemble in all nine dances on the bill. It doesn't faze me. I know Casel. That one--given the Yoruba name for "joy has arrived"--has energy to burn.

This season's particular display of joy, though, surely comes from the victory of sharing her prestigious first full-length program at The Joyce with six-time Grammy-winning Afro-Latin jazz musician Arturo O'Farrill. The woman who once created a solo tap show called While I Have the Floor (Spoleto Festival, 2017) took another floor this time to foreground cultural pride (she is Black and Puerto Rican). Both Casel and O'Farrill are in top form here--as introduced by Scalular, the sharp-edged, scintillating world premiere ensemble piece that opens the night. Their respective arts clearly grow from the same seed. The deep, intuitive communication and affection between these master artists could be easily read throughout the theater.

If you need any reason to be convinced that tap belongs in a bond with Afro-Latin jazz, buy a ticket to this show. As offered by O'Farrill and Casel, the combined music endlessly cascades like a crystalline stream over a long stretch of rocks, sparkling, glinting in sunlight. It gives life. Casel, in particular, finds innumerable delicate, exquisite facets to bring forth in sound--nothing expected or stale or slapdash; her discipline is steely--and she's joined by a diverse, talented young ensemble that includes Naomi Funaki, Dre Torres, Luke Hickey and Andre Imanishi. If I wished for anything at all, it might be a second program with juicy challenges for spirited artists like Hickey or Imanishi, in particular. Both look game for anything, grounded in good training and inspiration.

But I do love this program with its easy-going interlude where Casel tells of going from being a Ginger Rogers fan girl to her revelation at Fazil's--legendary, dearly-departed dance studio--when the entry-level tap she'd mastered fell embarrassingly short of the hoofer's mark. And with its feminist shout-out to Girl Power everywhere and, especially, to the once-overlooked women of color in tap's history, like Jeni LeGon. And O'Farrill and Casel's embrace of everything from Bach (Chromatic Fantasy in D Minor) to Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck and Wayne Shorter.

A grand new leap forward in Casel's career, this show is a must-see if you can manage to get a ticket. I suggest you don't delay.

Arturo O'Farrill (pianist/composer)
Keisel Jiménez (percussion)
Zack O'Farrill (drums)
Ivan Renta (saxophone)
Bam Bam Rodriguez (bass)
Kali Rodriguez-Peña (trumpet)

Carolina Gonzalez Mama (vocals)

A Broadway Foundation Leaders-in-Training (2019-2020):

Sasha Arteaga
Samaria Dalling
Karime De La Cruz
Mckayla Faye
Jasmine Mendoza
Vanessa Pavia Fuentes
Amani Varney

Betsy Chester (lighting)
Daniel Erdberg (sound)

Ayodele Casel + Arturo O'Farrill continues through Sunday, September 29 with 8pm performances through Saturday and a 2pm Sunday matinee. For information and (hurry!!) tickets, click here.

The Joyce Theater
175 8th Avenue (corner of 19th Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve as Senior Curatorial Director of Gibney. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

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Who's falling for dance?

I attended two dance shows yesterday: Fridays@Noon at 92nd Street Y and New York City Center's Fall for Dance. I haven't been to Fridays@Noon in a long while, largely due to time and energy factors, but I'm glad I found my way to this one. Over the years, I have never taken in too many of the extremely popular Fall for Dance shows either, and that's because I've already fallen and I can't get up.

Who's falling for dance? And who's spending lunch break catching some dance on the Upper East Side?

It was a small, mainly "insider" dance audience at 92Y yesterday afternoon for Words and Images: Trebien Pollard, A Future Vision. Pretty much everyone voiced some version of these words: "I wish more people could have seen this program." Well, actually more people can, since 92Y has a recorded livestream, thanks to Paul Galando and his dance and new media fellows from NYU Tisch. So you don't have to take it from me, but curator Pollard and his colleagues Johnnie Cruise Mercer, Aimee Rials and Brother(hood) Dance! (Orlando Zane Hunter, Jr. and Ricarrdo Valentine) killed it.

Pollard's dance artists step up and acknowledge that dance, while maintaining rigorous craft, can make powerful contributions to the current discourse on race, gender, sexuality and justice. I greatly admire Hunter and Valentine's work. In the video and dance excerpt they showed from Black Jones, they continue to set a high bar for exploring facets of Black gay identity and threats to Black life and well-being. They get me with accomplished performance technique as well as with humor and tenderness. Pollard, draped in a long, black gown, approaches his solo, Never Not Broken, like a ritual priest. Inspired by Martin Buber's I and Thou and Claudia Rankine's Citizen, the work makes use of Rankine's text and stark, solemn imagery to establish a space where hard questions can be asked about the cost of living as one's true self in oppressive society.

Mercer and Rials were discoveries for me. The only white and only female artist on the program, Rials is a New York-based Tisch grad raised in Alabama. Her solo, Modif(her), draws from her sense of crossing strict borders whenever she goes home, adjusting her appearance to conform, not out of shame but out of genuine concern for her and her family's safety. Modif(her) crackles with tension, obsessiveness and watchfulness, all sharply contained and restrained in space. Mercer's performance (with "drifter and assistant" Johnny Chatman II) impressed me for the opposite reason: Despite also alluding to societal strictures and dangers, Mercer seemed voracious in his imaginative reach and energy.

For a schedule of upcoming Fridays@Noon events, click here.

The Friday night Fall for Dance show featured France's CCN de la Rochelle/Cie Accrorap (acrobatic hip hop), Australia's Bangarra Dance Theatre and Hong Kong Ballet, all bringing big, crowd-pleasing US premieres. Oh...and among those unfurling ensembles, one more act, a solo: New York's Ayodele Casel, holding down the City Center stage with her assertive and nimble tap style. ("I feel like Ray Barreto on the timbales!") But maybe I should look at this a different way, because no tap dancer ever dances alone. Casel may have appeared to be up there by herself, but she showed up with her tribe--the ancestral women tap dancers, like Jeni Le Gon and Marion Coles, who she honors in While I Have the Floor. Every other act on Friday's program sprawled out in time, maybe too much so. (Dance sampler programs aimed at new audiences should give us samples, not productions almost lengthy enough to serve as their own evening.) But, if I had my wish, it would be for more Casel and a broader sample of her musical powers. It has been a long time since I've seen her dance, and While I Have the Floor, with its outward focus on others and heritage, though admirable, was not satisfying.

Fall for Dance's affordability is a great deal for dance artists and dance fans on a budget. Its omnibus programming enables established dance fans to easily try out companies or genres of dance they've never before considered or to catch up with a production they might have missed. I hope it really does inspire folks to explore and support other shows. For the hardcore dance-goer, though--okay, for me, I will own it--the evening can seem long while devoid of meaningful context for each company's presentation. It feels like both too much and not enough. But here's one sure thing: The folks in the seats throw a lot of love back at that stage.

This Fall for Dance program continues tonight at 8pm. For information and tickets, click here. For information and tickets for programs running October 5-8, click here.

New York City Center
131 W 55th St (between 6th and 7th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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A joyful noise: Savion Glover brings STePz to the Joyce

Savion Glover (r) and Marshall Davis Jr. ring some changes on
the stair dancing made famous by Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
(photo by Elijah Paul)

By the time you read this, it will be too late to catch STePz--the latest and, to my eye, most incandescent tap dance production brought to The Joyce Theater by the great Savion Glover. I hope that someone will help Glover to take this show on the road, keep it going somehow, until the shoes and feet fall off each of its five hoofers or until Armageddon, whichever happens first.

Savion Glover in action
(photo by Elijah Paul)

STePz should not fade into history. Everyone should have the chance to see Glover looking up, looking out and beaming, perhaps, from the joy of knowing he has gathered the right crew: Marshall Davis Jr., Robyn Watson, Ayodele Casel and Sarah Savelli. This ensemble rocks consummate discipline, style, sass and stamina. Glover has pulled it off: a show that manages to be both delightfully playful and bracingly tight. Neatly arranged into two halves featuring six numbers each, the 90-minute program slips from one high-powered dance into the next--nods to Miles Davis, Gregory Hines, Stevie Wonder and more--with barely a pause for breath.

A tap dancer's perennially loving, reverent gaze into the storied past of ancestral mentors might have brought a stern life lesson: Get busy. No time for nonsense.

The new, unexpected radiance coming off Glover is no illusion. Whatever the source, it frees his entire body and his aura and self-presentation, makes him gutsier, more responsive and musical than ever. You can believe his Mission Impossible theme face-off with Davis Jr.--numerous attacks on stacks of stairs in ways that would make Bill "Bojangles" Robinson faint--could go on forever. No quit, really, in either man.

Left to right: Robyn Watson, Ayodele Casel and Sarah Savelli
aka, 3CW (3 Controversial Women)
(photo by Elijah Paul)

It's always a pleasure, and instructive, to watch Casel's feet work with the focus and precision of delicate needlework, and it has been too long since I've seen the juicy Savelli in action. Savelli's dancing reminds me of why I like to dance. I also got a kick out of the way the jazzy, tuneful Watson allowed herself more time than Glover apparently had planned. As she worked through her solo turn in Miles Mode, Glover started back on stage, then had to back off! No quit in any of these women, either!

Still not enough tap in your life?

Tappy Holidays!--the annual winter extravaganza created by tap masters Ayodele Casel and Sarah Savelli--returns to Symphony Space, on Friday, December 12. Check it out!

Ayodele Casel and Jason Samuels-Smith

An interview with tap superstars, producers and educators Ayodele Casel and Jason Samuels Smith (July 2007)

MP3 File

Tappy Holidays 2007--Symphony Space

Last night, a buddy and I went to the “Tappy Holidays” show at Symphony Space. We were both a little leery about it because neither one of us is particularly into Christmas music, and this was going to be a tap dance show featuring nothing but Christmas music. Here's how things turned out!

For more on "Tappy Holidays" and its co-producers--Ayodele Casel and Sarah Savelli--visit http://tandemact.homestead.com, http://www.ayodelecasel.com and
http://www.sarahsavelli.com.

MP3 File

Podcast interview with tap superstars Ayodele Casel and Jason Samuels-Smith

What a thrill to have tap superstars Ayodele Casel and Jason Samuels Smith as my first interviewees on Great Dance Podcast, the new series produced by Great Dance blogger Doug Fox! Their openness, generosity and exuberance made our half-hour just fly by, and I know you'll sense the passion and serious dedication they bring to their craft. Check them out at Tony Waag's great Tap City festival, running this week, Wednesday through Saturday at the Duke on 42nd Street. For a schedule of programs and ticketing details, click here. And don't forget to subscribe to Great Dance Podcast!