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.