Junior Workshop Highlights

The inspiration: I have a background in dance and the dance school I go to makes a big effort to include education about famous dancers. I saw a video about the dancer Cathie Nicholas, the grandaughter of Fayard Nicholas from the iconic Nicholas Brothers tap-dancing duo that was popular between the 1920s and 1940s. She described tap dancing as America's greatest art form, which really resonated with me. Through this project, I wanted to explore the roots of tap dancing and how it has gone from being a central part of Hollywood to much more niche.

The process: I started with planning it out. I had originally wanted to do a documentary, but downsized to a docuseries given the time constraints. I thought about what aspect I wanted to focus on, and decided to explore tap dancing's evolution. I did a lot of emailing and figuring out who I could interview and who I could reach out to. I ended up interviewing Shelby Kaufman, my dance teacher; Hal Shane, a dancer who worked with a lot of choreographers; Danny J. Gardner, a dancer; and Derick K. Grant, a former Broadway choreographer who teaches at the Berklee College of Music. I also did a lot of research on YouTube, pulled clips to represent tap dancing's evolution, and figured out how to stitch them together. The final product was a three-part docuseries that combined interviews and archival dancing videos. The first episode covered the origins of tap dancing; the second focused on movie musicals; the third examined where we are now. Watch part one, two and three of the docuseries.

What I learned: The biggest thing I learned was this project gives you so much creative freedom – it's really about how you use that time and the resources that are given to you. With the structure of Junior Workshop, you have to make sure you’re able to create something that's also reflective of what your initial intent is. The project really expanded my knowledge on a subject I thought I already knew a lot about. Coming out of this project, I’ve learned so much – something that wouldn't have come up in the classroom.

What's next: I want to continue building up the docuseries element by adding more content and knowledge to keep making it better.