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For Ayodele Casel, tap dancing is magic. As a young high school student, she dreamed of one day dancing like Ginger Rogers as she recreated Ginger\\u2019s moves in her bedroom\\u2013but it wasn\\u2019t until Casel was a sophomore at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts that she took her first tap dancing class. That was her entry point into the art form which would eventually lead to a more than 20-year career as a professional tap dancer.

As a Black and Puerto Rican woman, Casel didn\\u2019t see herself reflected in the mainstream image of tap dancers because the form has been largely whitewashed through systematic racism. For that reason, she works tirelessly to remind her audiences that tap is deeply rooted in Black art and culture.

In this \\u201cHow I Made It\\u201d segment, Casel takes us through her tap journey and reclaims tap dancing as a Black art form.