December 19, 2024 - Ayodele Casel, Will Gusakov, and Nina MacLaughlin
About The Episode
Ayodele Casel is a trailblazing tap dancer and choreographer. Her tap dancing is at once percussive and poetry in motion. She joins The Culture Show to talk about the world-premiere production, “Diary of a Tap Dancer.” It traces her life – from her first steps in the Bronx and Puerto Rico– and along the way it celebrates the extraordinary and often-overlooked women dancers who broke the tap ceiling. “Diary of a Tap Dancer” is onstage at the American Repertory Theater through January 4th. To learn more, go here.
From there we look at the historic restoration of Notre-Dame Cathedral, which was made possible by the collective achievement of thousands of craftspeople, builders, firefighters, engineers, and architects. Among them was Will Gusakov. He’s a Vermont woodworker who was part of a New England team helping to rebuild Notre-Dame, working on the timber frame medieval roof system that was first built in 1200. Will Gusakov owns a timber framing company in Lincoln, Vermont, Goosewing Timberworks . He joins us to talk about being part of this remarkable undertaking.
Finally, the best-selling author and literary columnist Nina MacLaughlin has written a meditation on the cold, the dark, the solitude that descends on us this time of year in her award winning essay book, “ Winter Solstice .” She joins The Culture Show to talk about it.
