All tagged Lisa La Touche
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.
Tap Dance is my trade. It gives me great joy, a sense of purpose and belonging as Black woman in North America. It has brought me to the jazz bandstand, the Cotton Club and even to Broadway all while extending me the privilege of accessing depths of a culture’s history. It is an African-American art form, born through the oppression of slavery, yet miraculously thrives worldwide today. Let’s be clear, I started recreationally in the suburbs of Calgary, like most do here, and Tap Dance is often still a punch line for those who ask, “So, what is that you do for living?” I’ve learned, now, that the best way to respond is to ask the following, “When you think of Tap Dance, what is it that you think about?”
