Harvesting the Self Within a Duality of Residency

Dancing time and using time as a dance is the art of a Tap Dancer. We dare to be heard, and dedicate our time to the practice of listening. A refinement of the self and an oracle at best. When facing it all, it can feel like leaning in on a promise and hoping it works out like a Tap Dancer holding down time to bring in the band, “a one, a two, and a 1-2-3-4”. Where the melody goes from there is what it’s all about.

I am both a Canadian and a New Yorker. While laying my head here in Calgary for the past three years after living in the big apple for twelve, there’s been a profound shedding of superimposed ideals and an urgency to let go of social expectations unique to respective landscapes. I have gained a perspective of space and ecosystems in ways that continue to shape my process as a human being. I’ve learned how to resist oppressive forces that strip my identity while embracing the sounds and spaces of my life that empower my independence and cultivate my passions. I have learned how to enjoy patience and am now learning the value of incubation while in process as a local artist.

I currently share time in residence with jazz drummer Jon McCaslin at Decidedly Jazz Danceworks. We play four hours a week in a studio with double sprung maple floors made specifically for Tap Dance and ample room for the sound of the drum set to echo in the halls. A space positioned just right for the beams of daylight to pour into the room where seeds of rhythm can grow in abundance. We arrive with no agenda. We work on grooves, explore time signatures, improvising in and out of time nurturing our synchronicity inside the roux of jazz music. It’s a good ol’ slice of heaven.

Yet, I am also arriving back fresh off the heels of a week in residence at the American Tap Dance Foundation in New York City. Propelled into smaller studio spaces with no windows, I landed back in my other home. One day, it was just about hearing myself inside a 15/8 groove. The next it was collaborating with a Hip-Hop DJ figuring out how we can layer in sounds of tap into beat making while discussing how to factor in more elements of hip-hop into a future performance. The next day it was working on a solo piece for a film project honoring a childhood truth of my black existence. It was all a testing out of my new found sound and authenticity. A true blossoming inspired by time spent in time in a former place with nowhere to be and the freedom to just wonder. All the while, I was also being nurtured in the heartbeat of an industry back in full effect.

We really are always exactly where we are supposed to be. I have been realizing just how much the spaces I occupy all contribute to the evolution of my self. In Calgary I leave art spaces to sit and share coffee with my collaborators, sometimes wander in nature after it all, get in my car and return to my quiet home. In New York, I leave the shed to catch a set at the Village Vanguard, the Joyce Theater, or catch a friend’s debut in a new Broadway show. The return home is a street corner pit stop running into a peer, a subway ride taking in a street artist who’s simply trying to make it, or maybe a taxi ride uptown to Harlem reflecting on the day while overlooking the Hudson.

My identity as an artist has been realized within physical environments rich in nutrients all subdivided perfectly over time. I tap dance rhythms that ring true to the ancestry of my soul and bring out the sounds of who I am. In a musician's world, the more we tend to time the greater independence we achieve. The space just arrives and creativity meets us in the moment. I love this divine garden of time. I’m now learning how to transplant the roots of growth into my own soil within and simply take it with me everywhere I go.