Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Casey.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Ryan. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I watched Sesame Street often as a kid and saw Savion Glover on a few episodes. His appearances inspired me to take tap dance classes, which I did in my hometown of Lexington. I was hooked. It didn’t hurt that my mom took me to see any and every dance show there was back then — Noise/Funk, STOMP, Riverdance, and Imagine Tap! I was fortunate to continue my training throughout high school and as a member of Aaron Tolson’s New England Tap Ensemble. It was also then that I began a solo career, which I transferred to NYC when I did my undergraduate studies at NYU. While there, I connected with Michelle Dorrance and became a founding member of her ensemble, Dorrance Dance. She totally changed how I (and many others) saw the possibilities of tap choreography. When I moved back home, I knew I wanted to experiment with making dances. It took a few years of working with my friends and developing shows before I decided that I wanted us to have a name other than ‘Ryan P. Casey & Dancers.’ Now we’re known as Off Beat, which not only references a musical term, but refers to the offbeat characters we like to play in our pieces and the ways in which we try to take tap dance performance off the beaten path.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Every part of it has been a learning experience, sometimes in a trial by fire kind of way. I’ve had to learn how to be my own producer, agent, social media guru, graphic designer, website developer, marketing manager, and sound editor, in addition to being a choreographer. I remember taking all the gift money I received when I graduated college and investing it in producing a performance in NYC that I was never going to make a profit on. There are performances I haven’t been proud of along the way, but they all taught me something about how to do better next time. There aren’t necessarily a lot of road maps or tool kits for artists; a lot of us develop certain skills and abilities because we try and fail so many times before we figure things out for ourselves. I look back now on so many gigs where I know I didn’t charge nearly enough to teach or perform somewhere, but I didn’t know that then. It’s all part of the journey.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Off Beat – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Off Beat is a performing ensemble dedicated to presenting engaging, inventive, rhythm-based tap dancing. The core members of the company have known each other and been dancing together for a long time, so we really gel as a group. We tend to infuse our choreography with quirky humor, poetry, characters, and story lines. As a lover of languages, I really enjoy playing with how the rhythms of tap can react and respond to the rhythms of tap. I think the company excels, though, in delivering more than just a dance show: We love developing narratives and utilizing an eclectic variety of music as a vehicle for various plots and personalities. People know if they’re coming to an Off Beat show that they’re going to laugh, they’re going to enjoy a good story, they’re going to hear some great music, and they’re going to “get it.”
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I’m working on expanding our performance opportunities. Our next production, “Short & Suite,” will debut on September 8th at the Cotuit Center for the Arts in Cotuit, MA. It’s an evening of 4 tap dance vignettes, or suites, and we’re using quite an eclectic variety of music and themes. Additionally, slowly but surely, I’m also developing what I can only call a murder mystery tap dance cabaret. “Shear Madness” meets “The 39 Steps” meets tap dancing. I’m hoping it will offer something new in terms of what a tap dance show can be.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ryanpcasey.com
- Email: ryancasey24@gmail.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/offbeattap
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/tapdude24
- Other: www.instagram.com/tapdude24
Image Credit:
Siobhan Beasley
Cynthia Clayton
Joni Lohr
Jamie Robinson
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