June 9, 2021 - "Ayodele Casel, Steven Loza and Hitomi Oba: In Conversation"
The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music is proud to welcome Ayodele Casel, “a tap dancer and choreographer of extraordinary depth" (The New York Times,) in conversation with Steven Loza and Hitomi Oba. Casel's origins in theater and love for storytelling and tap dance have significantly contributed to the narrative nature of her work, which is rooted in the expression of identity, culture, language, and communication.
"A radiant and eloquent storyteller with words, Casel also makes her case with tap, its movement and sound a form of evidence, punctuation and declaration that turns her elevating message into an all-out sermon.” - BAY STATE BANNER
Ayodele Casel, “a tap dancer and choreographer of extraordinary depth" (The New York Times) and one of The New York Times' "Biggest Breakout Stars of 2019", most recently premiered “Chasing Magic” - a dance film encapsulating the wonder of collaboration at The Joyce Theater. Ayodele was also a 2019-2020 fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Born in The Bronx and raised in Puerto Rico, Ayodele began her professional training at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Ayodele is Artist in Residence at Little Island and is on the Artist Council for NY Pops Up!, a New York State lead initiative to jumpstart live performances in NYC. She is Resident Director, with Torya Beard, for Dance Lab New York's inaugural Tap Dance Project. Ayodele is also a featured tap dancer honoring the art form of tap on a 2021 US Postage Stamp to be released July 2021. Learn more about Ayodele at www.ayodelecasel.com.
"The effervescent Ms. Casel has been honing her expertise in tap dance since the 1990s. Her collaboration with the pianist and composer Mr. Arturo O’Farrill at the Joyce Theater was too long in coming — she should have been commissioned years earlier — but it was a spectacular display of technique and heart. Ms. Casel danced with the skill and spirit she is known for, but she also paid homage to the female tap dancers who came before her. She’s extraordinary.” - Gia Kourlas, The New York Times
About the Still Waiting Speaker Series:
"Our ancestors fought for what they expected to be a very different outcome than the one we are currently experiencing. The racial gulf has widened, and we are fighting battles that are bewildering to those of us who know the struggles of others who came before us."
The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music and its Inaugural Dean, Eileen L. Strempel are proud to launch Still Waiting, a new speaker series that invites the public to join UCLA students in conversation with prominent figures invited by the school’s Anti-Racism Action Committee (ARAC), to help us understand ourselves and our response to this deeply hurtful moment in our nation’s racial reckoning. Still Waiting invites us to demand better of our communities and better of our actions in response to the tangible effects of racist policing, academic and institutional indifference, and methodologies that may bridge the gap between feelings of alienation and feelings of sanctuary and refuge for us all.
About the ARAC:
ARAC, the Anti-Racism Action Committee of The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, is a non-hierarchical group of students, staff, and faculty members committed to changing the atmosphere of our Bruin community by addressing issues of bias, marginalization and discrimination toward black, Indigenous and people of color and other intersectional communities.