We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Victoria Moore a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Victoria, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
Finding your purpose can happen when you least expect it, and aren’t even aware you are looking for it. For me, this is how it happened.
Up until 2017 I was going about my career as a master tap instructor and dance competition judge, thinking that my purpose was to educate the next generation of up and coming dancers, and to prepare them for a career in dance. Back when I was 20 years old I audition and was selected to replace a dancer in the Broadway show Sugar Babies; learning all of the dances, songs, and skits in 4 days. On day 5 I was on stage performing. Trial by fire, launched into a career I had worked towards my entire life thus far. Soon after that show closed I landed my next Broadway show, 42nd Street, opening the Los Angeles company. This type of background and intense training positioned me well to share my knowledge, experience, and expertise to the next dancers in line coming up the ranks.
Little did I know, nor could I have predicted the pivot my career would take down the line.
One night in 2017 I went to see a friend perform in a dance concert. That show would turn out to change the course of my dance career. Two of the performances that night were executed by a beautiful dancer with cerebral palsy. In one number she danced using her crutches, and in the other her wheelchair. The choreography was lyrical in nature; meaning each piece had a story behind it which needed to be told through the movement. As she was dancing I found myself lost in the story she was conveying through the choreography. As a dance judge this is always something I’m looking for in a competition piece. I was enthralled with her and her performance that night.
Afterwards it dawned on me that in all of the years I had spent judging dance competitions and teaching dance, I had never come across a dancer with a disability. On the drive home after the concert my mind started spinning with all kinds of thoughts. Why is this the first time I’ve seen a dancer with a disability perform? Why have I never seen a dancer with a disability in any studio I’ve taught at? Why have I never seen a dancer with a disability at an audition?
My biggest concern was that the lovely dancer I saw that night might never enjoy the dance form I loved so much and built a dance career around. Tap dancing is the most exclusive dance genre there is in my opinion. The dancer needs to not only be able to stand, but also be able to shift their weight, hop, jump, and spin. Tap dancing is the only dance form that requires the artist to also play an instrument while executing the choreography and performing.
All of these questions led me to realize that dance has been, for the most part, leaving out two populations that deserve to experience the joy, fun, and expression of movement… the disability community and seniors. This is when it became crystal clear to me that my purpose needed to shift to focus on opening the door to dance to everyone.
I set out to shift the perspective of what dance is, what a dancer looks like, and what it means to dance. To that end I wrote a book called Tap Dance For All – Adaptive Instruction for Disability and Mobility Impairment, which McFarland Publishing produced. I wrote the book to help other dance instructors begin to open their minds and hearts to creating a more inclusive, diverse, and equitable dance environment; one where all dancers are welcome to express themselves creatively through movement.
I created my Tap for All program, where I teach seniors and the disability community, that if they want tap dance, tap dance wants them.
I designed and create special tap mittens and tap boards so that standing and balancing are no longer a requirements to gain all the cognitive, physical, and emotional benefits that tap has to offer.
I created my Tap for All Course and Certification, so that the pebble I’ve tossed into the pond of dance inclusion creates a ripple effect, and to help encourage the next generation of dance educators to design more inclusive spaces to explore and cultivate dance in.
Lastly, I speak at schools and organizations about inclusion and disability through my Be the Difference Make the Difference talks. The more the conversation is opened up around inclusion and disability the less unknown and scary of a topic it becomes. When non-disabled kids see that they have much in common with kids that have a disability, a common ground is found, and inclusion starts to happen.
Each one of these are things I had never done before, but staying true to my purpose, and using it as my guiding light, gave me the courage to, as the Nike ads say, “Just Do It.” I couldn’t be happier that I did.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
At this phase in my journey I am focused on creating a more inclusive dance world, helping to slow the progression of dementia, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s, and helping our veterans by assisting the recreational therapists at VA health centers all over the United States, literally from Puerto Rico to California, through my Tap for All hand tap program.
The cognitive, mental, and physical benefits of dance have been studied since the early 2000’s. What they have found is dance, specifically tap dance, has the ability to create new neural pathways in the brain. Creating new neural pathways has been proven to slow down the progression of dementia and Alzheimer’s. This is fascinating to me and extremely exciting. This kind of class can also be beneficial to briefly help calm down the tremors of Parkinson’s and help in the recovery of those who have suffered a stroke.
For other dance educators I offer my Tap for All Course and Certification, so they can learn what I’m doing and how I’ve created a profitable inclusive dance business. For dance studio owners I offer not only my course and certification, but also an inclusive analysis to help them create a studio that can accommodate those with disabilities, and a host of ways for them to attract clients with disabilities and seniors; increasing their client base and revenue.
Dance teachers historically do not make a livable wage, with most having to take on a second job to pay their bills. With dance classes and conventions being seasonal, having a business that is year-round is a game changer.
My brand, Victoria Moore Tap Dance, and my website: www.victoriamooretap.com is where you can find my Tap for All Course and Certification, my book Tap Dance For All – Adaptive Instruction for Disability and Mobility Impairment, my exclusive tap mittens and tap boards, my online Tap for All video subscription classes and information on my workshops and speaking engagements.
My Be the Difference Make the Difference campaign is my mission in all my speaking engagements, because it is the basis and foundation of all that I do.
This March I will once again be presenting a Tap for All demo at the Los Angeles Convention Center for the Abilities Expo. Come visit me on Saturday March 16th. Try out a pair of my tap mittens and hand tap dancing! In April you can find me presenting Tap for All at the Free to Be Me Festival in Santa Clarita from 12:30 – 1:00, and again from 1:00 – 1:30. Come say hi, try out tap dancing with your hands, or even buy yourself a pair of my tap mittens!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
In having started my business from nothing, charting new waters, and creating something that didn’t exist, I would say that the three things that were most impactful in my journey were:
1) trusting and believing that what I was doing was going to make a difference in people’s lives,
2) talking with, and more importantly listening to the people I was aiming to help; learning how I could best serve them,
3) leaning into my extensive dance teaching skills and expertise to know how to communicate, translate, and break things down to help my participants learn while having fun.
If you are early in your journey I would say to find a mentor, stay open to new ideas and ways to do things, and become a sponge; soak in all you can from those that are doing what you want to be doing.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
If I could have combined this question with the one about my number one obstacle I would have.
Right now, my number one obstacle is keeping up with the demand for my tap mittens. I make them myself, at my dining room table. Like I mentioned earlier what I have created doesn’t exist. I tried for 2 years to try and find someone else to make them for me, even asking the wardrobe departments on the Broadway shows I did. They all turned me down. So, when COVID hit I set out to figure it out. We all had nothing but time on our hands back then right? I grabbed my sewing machine, its instructions and got to work. There was a lot of trial, and tons of error in the beginning, but just like one of the greatest basketball players of all time once said in an interview, “Anything you do 1,000 times, you’ll get good at.” I haven’t reached 1,000 pairs of tap mittens yet, but I’m definitely well into the hundreds.
So, I would LOVE to partner or collaborate with a dance clothing manufacturer, or a sports company to help accelerate the manufacturing process. These tap mittens are a true labor of love by me for the disability community and the seniors I serve. I would dearly love to serve even more people, as there are an estimated 1.3 billion people in the world, 16% of our population, or 1 in 6 of us experiencing a significant disability today.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.victoriamooretap.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victoriamooretapofficial/
https://www.instagram.com/tapdanceforall/ - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VictoriaMooreTapDance
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victoria-moore-4b560945/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/VMoore_Tap
