Today we’d like to introduce you to Acia Gray.
Hi Acia, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, let’s briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
I have been on stage since I was a kid and am still a kid from drummer to actor to dancer to choreographer to producer to all of the above, living from the rhythm of my soul in the most honest way I can.
CO-FOUNDER & DIRECTOR of TAPESTRY DANCE COMPANY (Founded in 1989)
- EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Co-founder Acia Gray has served as Executive Director of Tapestry throughout the 1990s after serving in that position for Austin on Tap (the busiest touring tap dance company during the 1980s and historically to date). From 2000 to 2016, Tapestry had three full-time Executive Directors overseeing operations and development. Still, due to budgetary restraints and facility displacement, Ms. Gray took the position again in 2017. - ARTISTIC DIRECTOR / SOLO ARTIST
A graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts/NYC and a member of the AADA Rep Company, Ms. Gray has shared the stage as a jazz tap dancer with legends of the form including Donald O’Connor, Fayard Nicholas, Arthur Duncan, Savion Glover, Jimmy Slyde, Sarah Petronio, Dianne Walker and many others in such productions as The Great Tap Reunion, Tap Do/Wop, Just Friends, Masters of Tap, Chicago on Tap and Women in Tap at UCLA. She was chosen to work with legend Charles’ Honi’ Coles in America’s first creative residency for tap at The Colorado Dance Festival and again with Jimmy Slyde, among many other legends since 1989. She served on the Steering Committee of The National Tap Plan of The International Tap Association and served as its director from 2008-2018. She has also danced, choreographed, and taught for numerous academic institutions and festivals worldwide, including UT Austin in tap pedagogy.
Her book The Souls of Your Feet: A Tap Dance Guide for Rhythm Explorers has been translated into the Czech Republic and China. Her numerous awards include the “Hoofer Award” by The New York City Tap Festival. She was nominated for a Princess Grace Award in the early 1990s and honored at the 2018 Dance USA Conference among numerous tap festival honors. Ms. Gray has received multiple “Best Of” awards from the Critics Table in Austin and “Bravest Dance Artist” in 2016 for her production of Passing it Forward – The American Dream?
Her work The Souls of Our Feet: A Celebration of American Tap Dance was chosen as a National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpiece production and toured throughout the US, Canada, and China from 2009-2012. She can be seen in the documentaries Honi Coles: The Class Act of Tap, Gotta Move – Women In Tap, Tap or Die, Thinking on Their Feet – Women of the Tap Renaissance and Passing it Forward produced by PBS “Arts in Context.”
Ms. Gray is also proud to be a premier member of The Austin Arts Hall of Fame, a 2019 Austin Creative Alliance Honoree, and a current member of the Austin Arts Commission and Austin Arts In Public Places Commission Liaison. She currently also tours worldwide as a solo dance artist and master teacher.
- TAPESTRY DANCE
Founded in 1989 by Deirdre Strand and Austin Arts Hall of Fame premier member Acia Gray as a multi-form, multi-dimensional arts organization, Tapestry Dance Company has been the only full-time, salaried professional concert dance company specializing in rhythm tap around the globe since 2007* as well as producing one of the oldest tap dance festivals worldwide with The Soul 2 Sole International Tap Festival (formerly the Austin Tap Jam) since 1993. (*COVID – budget cuts forced Tapestry to lay off its professional company in the Fall of 2021). Through hundreds of collaborative, socially aware, and thought-provoking performances, educational and outreach programming since 1989. In dance, music, and art, we empower individuals (resident artists, contractors, audience members, outreach participants, or students) to take authentic action to improve the world.
We’ve always believed that dance, music, and art are for everyone, and they are present in all of us. By tapping into them, we can connect more deeply to ourselves and each other. We know there is power in weaving dance into life and life into dance. We work to provide more opportunities for people to unlock their potential and inspire them to take action towards the things that they care most about.
As a leader in the tap dance community worldwide, Tapestry has hosted legends of the form and contemporary pioneers within its presentations and choreography, as well as cutting-edge new works. Since its inception, The company has produced over 85 main-stage full-length multi-disciplinary premieres, staging over 643 new works by resident and international guest choreographers. Many of these works that debuted in Austin have since traveled around the country and abroad, including Cyprus, Austria, Ireland, Spain, Canada, and China (a 5-week tour in October 2011) to critical acclaim. Being chosen for the National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpieces: Dance for 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 for The Souls of Our Feet – A Celebration of American Tap Dance also shows the quality of Tapestry’s concert programs and artistic work within the dance field on an international level.
Tapestry Dance Company’s Soul to Sole International Tap Festival has become one of the nation’s top international tap gatherings, celebrating this traditionally underfunded dance form. As tap has been historically thought of as an entertainment vehicle rooted in America’s slave era, much work is currently being done by organizations such as Tapestry to make the mark of this incredible art form on the concert stage as well as educate and expand the knowledge, history, and legacy of this Black American art form. In addition to 28 years of NEA, TCA, and City of Austin support, Tapestry’s stability shows in its 33-year history of diverse and collaborative productions, outreach, and educational programs locally and worldwide since its inception.
- CULTURAL HERITAGE
Through its mission, Tapestry reflects the diversity of Texas’ cultural heritage by:
- Broadening the understanding of contemporary and traditional choreography, emphasizing rhythm and percussive dance.
- Preserving classic American tap dance works.
- Raising the awareness of local performance artists and their work.
- Collaborating with multi-form dance, music, and visual artists locally and internationally.
- Contributing to the audience and tourist development for the performing arts in Texas.
Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned? Looking back, has it been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Operating a non-profit arts organization is always a challenge for an arts leader. However, I believe the biggest challenge for myself and Tapestry Dance has been negotiating the six locations as “home” since 1989 and keeping a balanced budget in difficult financial times. Our first two moves were due to growth! The company ended up on Pressler & 5th St. and built into one of the city’s leading performing arts organizations and training academies for dance. Unfortunately (or fortunately), real estate development forced the company to find a new home on Western Trails (behind Central Market South). This move and much larger space & foundation built the company up to serving over 350 children in its pre-professional dance academy and over 200 adults, as well as an entire season as a resident company of The Long Center with our professional dancers hired from international auditions.
In 2016, that building was to be sold. Tapestry had a first right of refusal to purchase the building quickly; more was needed to set a strategic plan to raise/borrow 1.8 Million dollars. We’ll never know what could have happened if we did. With that, you can now drive by this warehouse building, which has been resold, gutted (thousands of dollars of hardwood floors, mirrors, etc.), and still have our name on it! The company had to minimize its academy services, sell the students, and relocate to a one-room rented space in a competition dance studio. But we DID stay alive, continue to produce performances and events, and kept at least our tap program alive. Albeit, 80% smaller than before.
In August 2019, we finally opened a new home at 2015 East Riverside Drive! Plans were to rebuild our academy in our new neighborhood with a strong strategic plan and move forward celebrating our 30th Year! In March 2020, five days before the premiere of our Long Center performing season, the COVID lockdown started. We did our best through film (our 30th Anniversary show became a seven-week-long “Tapflix” film series) and Zoom to keep programming and educational services going. Grants and contributions kept our space even though we could not operate live for over 12 months—the sadness we had to lay off our professional company in mid-2021. We have a strategic plan to keep our mission and stay in our Riverside home!
As a human, stress is real. I was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis in the mid-2000s and moved forward through my career in tremendous pain. It wasn’t until 2012, after numerous hospitalizations and two close-to-death moments, that the right doctor, my loving wife, and strong friends helped me survive. One step at a time now and less one colon! But I’m doing great!
I appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I was living from the rhythm of my soul in the most honest way I could. I’m proud of having worked with some of the greatest tap dance masters/musicians from the form “heyday” and continue to learn and share what they did with me, but to show the human element of this incredible art form. All the lessons of tap dance, when truly utilizing your body as a musical instrument, are life lessons.
For instance
– Listen
– Let yourself fall (and fail) so you can learn how to get up
– Know where your butt is
– Feel the room and dance together, not by yourself
I’m proud of making those connections for myself and others.
– Music is Life
– Dance is Music
– Life is Dance
We’d love to hear about your fond memories from growing up.
One is playing drums and singing with my stepfather’s band as a kid. Although in clubs and bars, it was priceless and an incredible way to learn music and improvisation. Before playing drums, I was also brought up to sing, and all of this was when I was around seven years old. My favorite times during this were playing shuffleboard and pool in the back of the bar, waiting for my name to be called! Ironically, I discovered in my late 50’s that Mr. Gray (my namesake) was not my dad. Unfortunately, my biological father, Harmon Knight, had passed away, but I found out he was the leader of a swing band and played drums! Fate, the drums went to my feet!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.aciagray.com
- Instagram: @aciagray
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/acia.gray/
- Youtube: @TapestryDanceCompany
Image Credits
Blue Suede Photography & Amitava Sarkar
