Today we’d like to introduce you to Matty Owens.
Hi Matty, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I grew up dancing and playing musical instruments. Tap was always my favorite, I loved how it perfectly encapsulated dance and music into one vehicle. I did dance competitions and an occasional community theater musical performance. I went to college in Denton as a dance performance major and was also in a professional tap dance company in Dallas during that time. When I graduated in 2016, I moved to Austin to be in another professional tap dance company and was a member for 3 years. I walked away after 3 years because it was an abusive environment. I stayed in Austin and worked at a variety of dog kennels. Over the next few years, I performed a few solo works at the Barnstorm Dance Festival in Houston and a tap dance festival in Toronto, Canada. I never felt more alive and joyful than when I was tap dancing with live music, particularly jazz. I finally realized that I was living in a live-music capital and started taking my board out to events and jams and sitting in with the wonderful musicians. I rediscovered my love of performing and am now performing constantly with local Austin musicians and organizations. Some of my upcoming performances will be in Embodied; an event created by ATX Artists for Social Impact and Capital Contemporary Ballet celebrating 55 years of pride in Austin through art, music, dance, and film on June 27th, as well as a hot jazz party event led by Lauren Gould and Ryan Gould at the Scottish Rite Theater featuring the Relevators, The Golden Hour Heptet, and the Golden Hour Orchestra on August 29th.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
There have definitely been many struggles. I was devastated when I left the dance company in Austin and felt for a long time that I was no longer a valid artist. I didn’t perform in Austin for about 6 years because it felt like it was territory that didn’t belong to me. When I came out as non-binary, I had several connections suddenly ignore me or turn on me. The worst was when I was guest-teaching for a youth tap company in Dallas and was accused of encouraging young students to make out with each other after being open about my pronouns and gender identity. I spent several years working alone in my room on my two by four practice board, studying music and working on my style and technique. It was very lonely and isolating, and felt like I was using my heart and soul to create things that just got sucked into the void of social media or never made it out of my room. I never stopped dancing, but it took me a long time to admit to myself how vital performing is in my life.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a tap dancer, but I call myself a tap instrumentalist. I use tap shoes as a musician would use their instrument to create music as a soloist or in an ensemble. I’ve been called a ‘human drum’, and have performed as the percussive element in place of a drum set for other musicians. How I sound is as important as how I look while dancing. I have synesthesia and see music in colors and rises and falls like a roller coaster, and one of my intentions when I perform is to have the audience see the music they’re hearing. It’s also important to me to also teach audiences that being ‘the dancer’ doesn’t mean I am always featured. I really work at blending into the ensemble when I’m performing with other musicians and not dominating each song. Tap dance has always been percussive and musical, but I have developed a style that makes the music and the dancing one and the same. You see the music, you hear the movement.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
Success is the freedom to constantly create art with meaningful connections and share those creations with the world.
Pricing:
- Private zoom lessons: 50-100 sliding scale
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattymakesrhythm/ (@mattymakesrhythm)
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matty-owens-ab6bb93bb/
