The art of tap dancing, I venture to guess, makes most people think of high athleticism and glossy showmanship: the Nicholas Brothers propelling themselves off a balcony into a split; Astaire and Powell against a starry background for “Begin the Beguine”; any number of challenge dances, each performer successively trying to one-up the other. It’s hard to think of tap without smiling — a sure cure for the blues, as per Jerry Herman’s famous Mack and Mabel 11 o’clock extravaganza entitled “Tap Your Troubles Away.” In that show, the number is gleefully juxtaposed with the recreating of a sordid, drug-related murder, which only serves to point up the cliché of tap as mere frivolous (if exhausting) fun.
One dancer/choreographer seems intent on redeeming any such reductive notion with Ayodele Casel: Chasing Magic, an online streaming success last year, now staged live at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge. For 70 minutes Casel and her troupe investigate the range, and push the limits, of the tap dancer’s art, exploring its ability to evoke deep meaning and heartfelt emotion without stinting on entertainment. It’s quite a feat.
On Dan Soule’s ingenious arrangement of platforms and criss-crossed ramps — all of it, of course, floored with wood calculated to pick up every click and brush — the six dancers move with suave assurance through some dozen vignettes with labels like “Friendship,” “Joy,” and “Legacy.” Leaning heavily into such standards as “That Old Black Magic,” “Caravan,” and “Cheek to Cheek,” the program includes welcome forays into jazz and world music provided by pianist Anibal Cesar Cruz, percussionist Keisel Jiménez (a sizzling solo “Congo” of his own composition), and the exquisite vocal stylings of Crystal Monee Hall, who takes us through her original call-and-response love song that warms you up and makes you feel that Hall’s your instant best friend.
But it’s dance that’s literally and figuratively center stage, presenting tap as you’ve not seen it before, with the acuity and intensity of classical ballet. It’s anti-athleticism, in a way; there’s no ostentatious brow-mopping, and indeed the company’s insouciance suggests no one is so much as working up a sweat. (If Astaire and Kelly come to mind, it’s the debonair Fred and aesthetic Gene in white tie and tails, sailing effortlessly across the floor.) The challenge dance gets an elegant twist in the “Friendship” sequence, in which Casel and Anthony Morigerato aren’t aiming to score points off each other, but sheerly appreciating each other’s skill (as friends do, right?) to the tune of “Fly Me to the Moon.”
Casel even eschews the most familiar of tap tropes, one or more dancers repeating the same step over and over to provoke applause. The audience for Chasing Magic claps, all right—gets to its feet and cheers, too—but we don’t need to be goaded into it, particularly when Casel teams with piano (guest artist and jazz great Arturo O’Farrill on opening night) to improvise a dance in which each takes rhythmic and mood cues from the other like the twin virtuosos they are, afterwards grinning ear to ear with the sheer joy of performance.
At times I felt the show was in danger of sinking into self-consciousness, with projected aphorisms and a sort of we-are-the-world earnestness pushed a bit too far. But director Torya Beard always pulls back from the brink. She and Casel know in their bones that a dancer’s art and heart offer their own message of brotherhood—messaging that carries a greater punch because it draws us in instead of being foisted upon us. I don’t believe I’ll soon forget Casel and her colleagues, and on a fretful or careworn day I think their artistry would be just the needed tonic. Tap your troubles away, indeed.
Ayodele Casel: Chasing Magic opened September 29, 2021, at the American Repertory Theater (Cambridge, MA) and runs through October 9. Tickets and information: — americanrepertorytheater.org
