ROOTS
As a soloist, choreographer and master teacher, Ms. Gray has toured extensively across the U.S. and abroad as a tap dancer and in 1989 co-founded Tapestry Dance Company in Austin, TX with Deirdre Strand and currently serves as Producing Artistic Director & Artistic Director of The Soul to Sole Tap Festival. A graduate of The American Academy of Dramatic Arts/NYC, Ms. Gray has shared the stage with Lon Chaney, Chuck Green, Steve Condos, Brenda Bufalino, Donald O’Connor, Fayard Nicholas, Buster Brown, Savion Glover, Gregory Hines, 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 and many others across the globe.
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 and was featured in the documentary A Class Act: The Magic of Honi Coles. She was a founding member and Managing Director of the touring company Austin on Tap and was also a featured soloist in the Dance Magazine Calendar during that early career. She served on the Steering Committee of The International Tap Association and also served as its director from 2008-2018. She has also danced, choreographed and taught for Columbia College, The University of Texas, The Colorado Dance Festival, International Summer School/Cyprus, Dance Masters of America, TASIS/London, Tanzsommer/Austria, The St. Louis Tap Festival, The Chicago Human Rhythm Project, Tap City / NYC, Le Festival De Danse Encore, RIFF Dallas, OC Tap Festival, TanzDanse Dusseldorf and many others.
Her book The Souls of Your Feet – A Tap Dance Guide for Rhythm Explorers has been translated in the Czech Republic and China and was an Amazon.com Bestseller in its category since 1998. Her numerous awards include the “Hoofer Award” by The New York City Tap Festival and honored as a premiere member of the Austin Arts Hall of Fame. She was also nominated for a Princess Grace Award in the early 1990's and honored at the 2018 DanceUSA Conference. Ms. Gray has received numerous "Best Of" awards by the Critics Table in Austin and her work The Souls of Our Feet - A Celebration of American Tap Dance was chosen as an NEA American Masterpiece production and toured throughout the US, Canada, and China from 2009-2012. She can also be seen in the documentaries Tap or Die, Thinking on Their Feet - Women of the Tap Renaissance and Passing it Forward produced by PBS. Ms. Gray is proud to be a 2019 Austin Creative Alliance Honoree and currently serves as an Austin Arts Commissioner and commission liaison for Austin's Arts In Public Places.
Passing it Forward (PBS Arts In Context - 2016)
Be Somebody - Passion Portrait
A Vision In Rhythm - Documentary (2011)
2019 Tapestry Compilation (History) 2019