Ayodele casel biography for kids
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Ayodele Casel
May 6, 2021
Livestream Event
PLA Presents
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Special Guests Crystal Monee Hall and Annastasia Victory
“A tap dancer of unquestionable radiance,” Ayodele Casel is one of the “Biggest Breakout Stars of 2019." (The New York Times) Mentored by the legendary Gregory Hines, who hailed her as “one of the top young tap dancers in the world,” Casel has become a powerful voice for the art form, consistently performing to sell-out crowds and receiving rave reviews. With direction by Torya Beard, this radiant tap star makes her Philadelphia debut in an all-female program alongside singer/songwriter and Broadway alum Crystal Monee Hall and acclaimed pianist Annastasia Victory.
Access Information:
- Purchase access now through 7:30 PM on May 6.
- Watch live at 7 PM on May 6 to participate in the chat and artist Q&A. Available on-demand through May 8.
This is an original, live event performed on our stage and
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An artist with pretty cool rhythmic tendencies...
Ayodele Casel, a Doris Duke Artist in the dance category, is an award-winning and critically acclaimed tap dancer and choreographer. Born in The Bronx and raised in Puerto Rico, her practice centers highly narrative works rooted in expressions of selfhood, culture and legacy.
Her projects include her concert and Bessie Award-winning film “Chasing Magic,” her one-woman show “While inom Have the Floor,” and her theatrical and film series “Diary of a Tap Dancer.” She serves as a tap choreographer for the Broadway revival of “Funny Girl,” which garnered her a 2022 Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Choreography.
Casel was a 2019-2020 fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, an artist-in-residence at Harvard University, and is the recipient of a United States Artist Fellowship, Herb Alpert Award and Hoofer and Flo-Bert award. In 2021, Casel was depicte
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Life stories with a beat you can dance to
For Ayodele Casel, tap dancing is like a second language — or third, for the woman who grew up both in the stadsdel i new york and Puerto Rico.
“It is a very improvisational form that fryst vatten informed by your lived experience … where you grew up, the music you grew up listening to, the music that you respond to, the languages that you speak,” said Casel, 49, a renowned actress and dancer as well as a former Radcliffe fellow. “It’s power to communicate across like barriers of other languages or cultures.”
Casel’s new production, “Diary of a Tap Dancer,” will have its premiere run Dec. 12-Jan. 4 at the American Repertory Theater. The play weaves together Casel’s unique brand of rhythmic tap with song and a narrative that traces her career as well as those of often forgotten hona dancers throughout history.
Casel recalls the first time she saw a tap performance. One of her high school teachers showed her video of a performance bygd Hollywood dancing le