We were lucky to catch up with Tyisha Cummings-Norman recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tyisha , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think it takes to be successful?

Success can mean different things to different people, fame, wealth, impact, happiness, mastery, or a mix of those. No matter how you define it to me in order to be successful and what has worked for me, is having clarity in your purpose know why your doing something. Consistency is always key! You must stay consistent. Failures are going to happen so you must stay resilient. Must have self awareness and being able to adapt to any and everything that comes your way. Have to stay focus on your end goal and never give up. The relationships you build also plays a huge factor in success.

Tyisha , 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?

My name is Tyisha Cummings-Norman a Jersey native that has a passion for fashion & dance. I started dancing at the early age of 4 at her local church doing praise dance, then went to join Jenn Marie Dance Company where I was professionally trained in Jazz, Hip Hop, Lyrical & Tap. After that I spent my summer enhancing & getting trained in my contemporary skills with Alvin Ailey Summer Program. Fast forward to adult years I became the founder of Kean Musical Movements & the owner of Dance With Tyisha Dance Company.

Dance With Tyisha Dance Company, DWTDC provides a service that supplies dancers & dance choreography for all creatives dance needs, I.E music videos, weddings, live performances, tours, commercials, dance visuals. For artists I also provide artist development & private lessons. I also teach dance classes & fitness classes.

At a young age of 3 I found myself watching shows like soul train, 106 & park, Vh1 & MTV Jams, whatever show that showed music videos you could find me glued right in front of the TV. In my time growing up music videos were a huge thing and the dancing in the music videos captivated me so early in the game. I found myself mimicking the moves I saw on TV. I was inspired by videos from Chris Brown, Missy Elliot, Ciara, Michael Jackson, Beyonce, Aaliyah, Brittney Spears, just to name a few. A lot of their videos had dance choreography that I would continuous watch & teach myself the steps.

My journey as a self taught dancer & choreographer shaped my artistic vision in many ways, the biggest one being freedom. I LOVE to freestyle. There is no right or wrong way to do it you are simply expressing yourself. Which is my main motivation & goal to this day when I’m teaching, performing & creating is to express myself through dance. I want you to be able to feel something when watching me or my company dance.

Dance brings people together, people dance at parties, weddings, celebratory events the list goes on. You dance with strangers, for example line dances bring everyone together weather you know each other or not but something that everyone has in common is knowing the same dance. Within my local community I hosts choreography dance classes along with fitness dance classes. My dance fitness classes bring people of all ages together to have fun & get a work out in as well. I also do community work through my company such as toy drives for the holiday season.

I am always training to sharpen my dance skills & knowledge. I go to concerts & study the dancers & production. I watch ALOT of live performances of artists. I educate myself in all genres of dance. I like to stay up to date with what’s current & new so that people will be engaged & can relate to the performance I’ve created.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

A significant challenge I’ve faced is moving to another state & starting all over. I’m from New Jersey I was living there all my life. So everyone knew me & knew about my company & dancing abilities. I got the nick name of “the dance plug” anything that had to do with dancers everyone knew to reach out to me. Moving to Georgia where no one knows me to overcome that obstacle of getting people to know me & my company, I had to do a lot of networking, marketing, workshops, social media marketing, & some rebranding. I still have more to do but I’m slowly but surely building my clientele here in Georgia.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Dance is definitely evolving even more now with the help of digital media & social media platforms people are getting picked for major tours with artists from social media alone. Us dancers social media is our new resume. Now with streaming of music at an all time high dancers have a huge impact on artists songs & how many plays it get. Being that dancers create dances to artists music & it goes viral so does the song! It’s a win win for both the dancer & artist. When I was growing up dancing was major & a must have for music videos then it slowed down for a little bit because of the streaming networks for music people weren’t making music videos anymore. The future of dance is evolving everyday & im so happy to be apart of it.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @dwtdanceco & @_egotisticalty
• Facebook: Egotistical Ty
• Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCT3NglDiLtCJUH5c451FBrg

Image Credits

Brittany Hayes