Charmaine Warren (CW): How long have you been working with Savion?
Ayodele Casel (AC): Savion and I first started working together in 1997 when he created N.Y.O.T.s (Not your ordinary tappers). As a group we toured the country and the world for 3 years consecutively. It was one of the best times of my life. I was so young, and young in the dance as well. I loved that time period because I learned so much. Everything was exciting and inspiring. I was learning at every moment from the absolute best people in this art form. Savion, Jimmy Slyde, Buster Brown, Gregory Hines, my peers, Dianne Walker, Brenda Bufalino, to name a few. It was a magical time. Really.
CW: Do you remember when you first met Savion? What was that encounter like?
AC: Baakari Wilder, a beautiful dancer from Maryland who was attending NYU at the same time I was, introduced me to Savion. Baakari had been mentoring me for about a year and he was so generous from the start. His love of the art form cemented my interest, love, and respect for Tap dancing as an art and it changed how I viewed putting my tap shoes on from the very first moment I saw him shuffle at Fazil's studio on 8th avenue. I remember him telling me he was working on a show with Savion for The Public Theater and I said: "Does it have tap dancing in it?!" LOL. I was so naive. I hadn't seen anything in recent times that included Tap dancing the way I was learning it. He said " Yes, definitely". Needless to say when I saw "Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk" at The Public, my life changed forever. That show was brilliant, on so many levels. It spurred a movement, in my opinion. I was introduced to Savion outside of the Ambassador Theater one afternoon once the show transferred to Broadway. I remember Baakari was looking forward to Savion meeting me. It felt like he was a proud teacher. It was a very casual encounter but by this time I had been coming to see the show almost every day and I was soaking up all of the information being poured out nightly. I had developed somewhat of a reputation for knowing the choreography without being in the show—I was so obsessed with it. At the time, Savion used to do these concerts at Nuyorican Poets Cafe and at the end of the show he'd open up the floor to the dancers in the audience. One night I was itching to express myself and I took the floor and I think it was that particular evening his interest was piqued. I remember he asked me to prepare a 4-bar phrase for him to see in the near future. I didn't know where he was going with it but I was so excited and so nervous to do something good. Ironically, to this day, he has never asked me for that 4-bar phrase lol!! But our first encounter was very casual, he was very genuine and I was thrilled to meet this electrifying and magnetic dancer who was clearly anointed with something divine.