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Video: Ayodele Casel Previews the Fascinating Rhythms Coming to New York City Center
May 17, 2024
Doris Duke Artist Award winner Ayodele Casel is this season's artist-curator for the Artists at the Center series at New York City Center. In this video, watch as Ayodele and the cast give a special sneak peek of the series!
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I got a rhythm, I got music
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I got my son with a vocalist for anything for that's a song rhythm must have just been on to be
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Oh my gosh, I'm so excited that we got to do this and share this with the folks tonight
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You know, this is the artist at the center. For me, even though I was asked to be the artist at the center, I feel like I took it as a
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really great opportunity to just really highlight and share with audiences the vast
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vast expression of tap dancing that's happening today you know and I I'm
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thrilled I'm thrilled to be able to for everybody to get a little sort of smorgasbord of what is happening right now you know in the tap scene today was
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our first day with the full company all together so today was like especially
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thrilling and having the opportunity for everyone to come together and to see each
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other's work and to share it with people who have not been a part of the process was also really exciting so I just feel so encouraged I'm so
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excited and today was very special It's interesting
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Assembling this group of people was actually a lot easier than maybe one might expect
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You know, we have 10 choreographers, myself included, as part of the program
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But for me, I lean on community. I lean on what our tradition is, and that is that we, gosh, like, once we're in our shoes
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we're like we're in life together for a lifetime. And so I selected folks that I've known since they were young, young, young
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I selected artists that I know have really established a career and a path for themselves
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as it relates to this art form. And I wanted to pair together those voices along with the genius, the genius
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the genius young tap dancers that are coming up today. So it was very easy to think about Michelle Dorrance and Darya and Adorelli, you know
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and then Caleb Tyshire and Naomi Funaki. And of course, like myself and Amanda Castro, and Jared Alexander and Tomoy
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and Brennan Alley and Gerson Lanzah. Like it was just, it was a dream to kind of come together for this and this way
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I feel incredibly blessed and grateful and I think it's such a privilege to be able to share your art with
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I don't know, just for all audiences, not just concert dance audiences, but also Broadway audiences
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And I'm so excited that, you know, eight times a week, funny girl folks, you know, get to see Eddie's Tap and Jared Gruny
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times kill it and and Leah Michelle currently just like, you know, I don't know, representing tap dance so beautifully
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And I don't know, I think this is just like another side of the nitty-gritty of what we do, you know
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I gonna So audiences can expect to feel joy to sort of like be able to take this big exhale
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and just relax into the experience, to feel welcomed, to feel like all of us are in community
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together and it's an experience that we're sharing together. And hopefully the idea
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The idea of legacy and belonging and all of the themes in where we dwell will resonate with people
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and they will feel closer to the people they want to honor in their own lives and the people whose footsteps they walk in
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I think everybody wants to tap dance. I think that all audiences love tap dancing where there's Broadway audiences or concert dance audiences
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or people who are just like living their lives on this train and they happen to see somebody busking
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I believe that tap dancing is like one of those things that bring so much joy to everybody who like comes in contact with it
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So what I'm really most looking forward to is audiences really having their curiosity and their love for it awakened again
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Thank you
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