We recently connected with Alexis Robbins and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Alexis thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is actually what I’m working on right now. I am in the process of creating a rock opera where all of the percussion is Tap Dance called The Mercy Velvet Project. This is something I have been dreaming of making for almost three years and it is finally, slowly becoming a reality. I was initially referring to it as a musical, but in the process of making our first few small shows happen, it became clear, through personal feelings and audience reactions, that it is in fact a rock opera. It is a reimagining of a rock album.

Mercy Velvet was a rock band trio in the 90’s in Rhode Island. My father was the drummer. I grew up attending these band rehearsals, playing Pokemon and more with the other band members’ kids. Mercy Velvet made one beautiful album titled Live in Vain. They recorded it, got it on a few CD’s, had a release party, and then quickly broke up (two of the band members were married and they got divorced). While Mercy Velvet didn’t continue to create music together, Live in Vain played in my household growing up on repeat. This album became a staple in my living room dances as a kid. The album opens with “if I could stop one heart from breaking, I would not live in vain”. Of course, I had no idea what that meant when I was a child, but now as an adult I regularly ask myself “how do I not live in vain”? I believe the answer is to create the art that I am making, to create opportunities for other artists, to bring dance and music to audiences that don’t experience it, and to give and receive mercy.

My father and I have a connection through percussion. He is a drummer; I am a Tap dancer. I create rhythms and music that you can both see and hear through the art form of Tap Dance. I firmly believe that Tap Dance is music and Tap dancers are musicians. I also believe that music exists to be danced to and therefore dance and live music should always happen in conversation with one another. It is my forever goal to educate audiences, musicians, and dancers, that dance and music can and should happen together. We have gotten so far removed from these types of collaborations, so I’m doing my best within my own work to showcase that is possible. In The Mercy Velvet Project, all musicians are dancers, and all dancers are musicians. Everyone dances, everyone sings, it is a multidisciplinary production where we truly move and create together to tell the story of the album Live in Vain.

I started dreaming of making this happen in 2021, and in 2022 I started to play around with just one song and three collaborators. In 2023 I spent much of the year dreaming, creating by myself, and planning, and eventually securing a Musical Director, bass player, and creative partner, Christie Echols. In 2024 we started working with a team of five other artists including guitar, lead vocals, and three Tap dancers to bring two of the songs to life for two successful works in progress performances in April and May 2024. And now we are on a journey to create the next seven songs from the album and piece together a cohesive show that will be an hour and 15 minutes long and premiere in 2025. I have been choreographing and creating for almost 15 years, I have been seriously producing shows for 7 years, and I have been regularly collaborating with musicians for the past 6 years, but this is the first time I have created something this large and this important to me.

Here’s the show description:
The 1999 album, Live in Vain by Mercy Velvet, exists on zero streaming platforms, and few people have heard it. But its legacy is as relevant as ever. The Mercy Velvet Project is a rock opera, a re-creation of the album. The work explores what makes us human, our collective need for community to survive—with musicians and dancers moving as one. Through nine songs, a queer and femme cast explores different barriers to experiencing love. Learning that by giving and receiving the gift of mercy, we are able to find the bridge to love. Over twenty years after the albums’ release, Choreographer Alexis Robbins, Musical Director Christie Echols, and their collaborators expand upon its legacy through their personal identities and today’s political realities. The show tells the story of the album through tap dance as percussion, contemporary dance, original text, and instrumentation via bass, guitar, and vocals—highlighting our vulnerabilities, learning together how to find the antidote that is mercy, and in turn lead meaningful lives.

This project is all I think about every day, and with the goal being to tour it and perform it as much as possible, I hope to be living inside of it for the next several years. It already is and will certainly continue to be a difficult journey, as Tap Dance and dance in general are underfunded and under curated. But I will do everything in my power to persevere, because I know this show is extremely unique, and it is a part of my family legacy. Tap Dance and Rock-n-Roll, guitar players lying on the ground, contemporary movement and poetry, musicians and dancers breathing together… have you ever seen anything like it?

Alexis, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am first and foremost a creator. I make and produce in person experiences for audiences to enjoy primarily dance and music in a variety of ways. I am a choreographer, producer, performer, writer, and dance educator. Movement is my practice, mostly in the form of Tap Dance but also contemporary dance styles that are influenced by Modern, House, social dancing, and more. In most of what I do, I prioritize interdisciplinary collaboration and cross pollination. As a Tap dancer, I am an improviser and musician that performs and creates with other jazz instrumentalists, as well as in more abstract contexts. I also love to incorporate text or poetry in the form of spoken word or vocals into both my choreographic works and improvisation.

Since 2015 I have been operating under the brand name kamrDANCE, which has housed all of my choreographic works with a large range of dancers, collaborators, and musicians. www.kamrdance.com

I am based in New Haven, Connecticut and have been since late 2018. New Haven is a strange place to exist as a dancer and choreographer as there is little infrastructure for dance creation, and as a result I collaborate with artists from many different places including Hartford, NYC, New Jersey, and more.

I regularly produce both community and professional events and performances throughout the state of Connecticut. Bringing audiences into a world where live music and dance are always in conversation. I am also an educator, primarily teaching Tap Dance but also other forms. I am the only educator in Greater New Haven that offers drop in, adult Tap classes that are pay what you can and focused on the roots of the form.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

Listen to artists. Listen to their needs and take them seriously and then give them what they say they NEED. We cannot pretend we want to exist in a “thriving creative ecosystem” but not do anything about it. We live in a country that does not support individual artists and that pushes the starving artist narrative and non-profit model. It’s not working, it hasn’t been working and it’s going to keep not working unless we make big changes. Artists need support in order to thrive and that needs to come in the form of BOTH monetary support and operating support. If we want to see artists survive and thrive, we need to put our money forward. The general grant system does not serve most artists and folks are wasting so much of their creative capital and time applying to things that they will never receive that require rigorous effort. Instead, we could be pooling resources and creating systems that actually benefit artists. And if there’s someone who’s art you sincerely enjoy, their art is making a difference in your life, then you need to find bigger and better ways to support them, because what if they were able to serve more people the way they serve you?

I think a larger part of the general lack of resources is also due to the silos that exist within the arts. Artists could be helping each other out more. I personally believe dance and music are the same thing and should always happen in conversation with each other. So let’s create spaces that are accessible that serve multiple art forms, not just a select few. Dancers need SPACE, something that is always lacking. And spaces where dance can happen and thrive are also spaces where all types of performing arts and even visual arts can thrive as well. There needs to be a drive towards creating collective spaces and making them accessible (which means affordable and also literally physically accessible).

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

That dance and music are the same thing and should happen in conversation with each other as often as possible. I specifically mean dance and live instrumentalists performing and collaborating together. Music exists to be danced to, so why do we separate them so often? Why are there so many musicians that have no relationship to their physical selves and why are there so many dancers that have never performed with live music or spoken to a musician? It doesn’t have to be that way. We can break the silos and invite each other into our respective worlds. As a result, we will learn more about ourselves and teach audiences the power of these things combined. Movement is medicine, and dance helps us connect our brains to the vessels we live inside, and therefore helps us be better people. If we understand ourselves, we can have more empathy towards each other.

Tap Dance should be taken seriously as both a musical and dance form. Tap Dance is jazz, it should always be invited into jazz spaces and TAUGHT in all jazz spaces. Tap Dance barely exists in higher education and most dance education and yet the history of Tap Dance IS the history of the United States. Tap Dance is a Black American art form that is the root of almost all music and dance in this country. I could go on forever, so if you are reading this and you want to learn more, shoot me an email!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kamrdance.com
• Instagram: kamr77 and/or kamrdance
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kamrdance
• Other: https://www.vimeo.com/kamrdance

Image Credits

Stephanie Asestis, Leigh Busby, Ruby Gonzalez Hernandez, Kyle Netzeband, Cate Barry, Nikki Lee