(Image: Tyler Knowlin)

More than 4,500 miles separate Dublin, Ireland, from Seattle, but the connection is close and personal for Capitol Hill resident and tap dancer Tyler Knowlin. Between 2016 and 2022, Knowlin was a member of the international touring production of Riverdance, performing in more than 1,000 shows worldwide.

Raised in Manchester, Connecticut by his mother Frances, Knowlin was first introduced to tap dancing lessons at age five — and hated it.

“The kind of tap I did in those lessons was the sailor suit with the bow tie, the shiny tap shoes, and the pink cummerbund,” Knowlin, 40, explained during an interview at Post Pike Bar & Café on Broadway. “I was one of the only Black boys at the time. It was just miserable.”

By age 10, he started appreciating how the artform inherently created space for individual artistic expression. “Tap wasn’t like ballet, where everyone had to fit into the same mold. With tap, you could stand out. Even at 10 years old, I knew there was something free about it.”

Today, Knowlin and his partner Candy Winters live on Capitol Hill where he is a barista at Top Pot on Summit Ave.

After putting away his tap shoes and resting his feet for a few years, Knowlin is ready to perform again. Below, he shares his experiences touring with Riverdance, as well as meeting his tap-dancing idol Gregory Hines, reading lines as a teenager for a film with Sean Connery, and his next tap-dancing moves in Seattle.

Three years have passed since you performed with Riverdance. Do you still tap, even if it’s just for your enjoyment?

It never stops. There’s a dance studio on 15th Avenue that I rented for a while. I didn’t have a performance coming up. It was just to work out. I’m always tapping. Even at Top Pot, you don’t see me in the back, but I’m tapping.

Riverdance has been parodied often over the years. What’s your take on that?

Knowlin at the center of the Riverdance stage

When I was in it, they didn’t take themselves so seriously that they looked at all that stuff as disrespectful. We loved it. It’s an honor to make that much of an impact that you’re a cultural phenomenon. It’s like the original meme. It brought people out and kept Riverdance on the map. The show is still going. I love seeing it on TV because I can say I was a part of it. Candy and I will look at each other if a Riverdance commercial comes on TV. It’s a little inside joke.

Where are some memorable places you performed with Riverdance?

The Apollo Theater. It looks so big on television, but I remember it being small. You could touch the mezzanine from the stage. But the history and everything else are still there.

The Gaiety Theatre in Ireland. I don’t talk about it because I can’t convey in words the experience, honor, and history of how amazing that was. I was put up in an apartment, just a seven-minute walk to the Gaiety in the middle of Dublin. I walked to work every day all summer when the tourists were there to see the show I was performing in.

Radio City Music Hall was daunting. Riverdance had always wanted to perform there. It was the most magical few days of our lives, followed by the worst time of our lives because we were there when COVID happened. I remember walking out into Vanilla Sky in New York City. Nobody was in the streets. We were sent home.

How did the opportunity to join Riverdance arise?

I was in Connecticut in 2015 when I saw an open call on Facebook for tap dancers for Riverdance in New York City. I watched the shows and learned the choreography. I was 30 years old, going into the city to audition, wearing dress pants and a button-down dress shirt tucked in. I was doing it right. I was going to make the best impression. But they weren’t booking anyone. They billed it as an audition so we would come in with that energy.

Later that year, I got a phone call from Aaron Tolson, an amazing tap dancer with Riverdance. He said, “Be at this place at this time and on this day.” That was the whole conversation. I went out with Riverdance for two weeks, performing in Florida, North Carolina, Alabama, and Texas. They sent me home and said they were going to have other tap dancers come out. They were feeling me out.

The next thing I knew, I was going to do the whole North American tour. My first show on that tour was New Year’s Day in Costa Mesa, California, in 2016. I was terrified. I thought I was ready, but not on this level. My performance was nothing I was proud of. The casting director came backstage and said, “You’re going to be alright. Just go do it.” He had seen enough people to know when there would be a problem. From that first performance on, it was “game on!” I just got better. For the next six years, I did six-month tours of America and four-month stays in Dublin.

When I think of Riverdance, I think of this huge line of people dancing the jig. But you also performed a popular segment called “Trading Taps,” correct?

I danced the jig for the finale, too. But “Trading Taps” was 13 minutes—the longest number in the show. It’s the top of the show’s second half, and the Irish have come to New York City, but the Irish guys aren’t happy. [The Black tap dancers are] going against the Irish guys, “trading taps” back and forth. It was the best number in the show because we could interact with the crowd and break the fourth wall. We were there to start the party, wake everybody up, and interact with the audience. We wanted you to hoot and holler and talk to us onstage. I would play that up a lot. Every part of that number was amazingly choreographed.

It never got old because we were gifted the number where I could put my influence into the dance. Even with the choreography, I could still change where I put my arms; I could put my facial expressions and energy into it. It changed every night. That’s why I never missed a performance. Also, I never didn’t get nervous. When you don’t get nervous, it’s just a paycheck. Getting nervous means you still care. I cared about every performance.

Why did you leave Riverdance?

I joined it when I was 31. Toward the end of my second-to-last tour, I looked around the stage. The average age was 21, and I was 37. It was just time to pass the torch.

(Image: Tyler Knowlin)

When researching you for this interview, I learned that you were nearly cast in the film Finding Forrester.

It was my first year at the Hartford Academy for the Arts. On the corkboard in the hallway, there was a notice for open calls for a movie with Sean Connery. I went to New York City for the audition, a big cattle call in a gymnasium. They had us all lineup and play basketball. Somebody watched me the whole time—like, really watched me. I started to take it personally: What are you looking at? I forgot where I was for a second. It was the casting director. She came over and asked me to read a few lines up in the bleachers. It was nothing official. I was dismissed.

Later that day, I got a call to come back another day to read with the casting director, a few producers, and another actor. When they gave me the script and told me to go home and read it, I knew it was getting real. I went back to New York City for a third round of auditions. I’ll never forget that day. I walked in, and there was Sean Connery, Gus Van Sant, some producers, and me. I knew Gus Van Sant’s name, but I don’t think I knew what he looked like. But Sean Connery goes without saying. I read a couple of lines with them. I felt it went well. Finally, I got a call and was told I wasn’t “urban” enough. If you think of where the world was then, it was 2000, and I was 15 years old. Those were the roles. The urban basketball player. The troubled kid in school. I kept my head down and thought, “OK. I will focus on school now and get the chops up, so I’m ready for the next time.” I never really bounced back and kept the momentum. I was gutted. I wasn’t ready for that rejection.

Gregory Hines has been a huge influence on you. Why?

When I think of Gregory Hines, I think of the movie Tap. It was the end all be all. There was a Black man on the cover. There was this whole other world. I wanted to do what all those grown men were doing in that movie. Little did I know, it was Gregory Hines, Jimmy Slyde, the Nicholas Brothers, Bunny Briggs, and all these legends of tap in that movie that I would get to study and dance with later on. Gregory Hines was my Michael Jordan. I met Gregory Hines at the New York City Tap Festival in 2001. I was 15 going on 16. He was going to be honored, so it was a big deal that he was coming to teach workshops. I signed up for one of his workshops. Meeting him was better than anything I could have ever imagined. There was nothing off-putting about him. If anyone had a question, needed to be shown a step, or wanted to know anything, you could ask him.

How did you end up in Seattle?

Candy and I moved to Capitol Hill in 2022. Her family lives in Spokane. I had come to Seattle to visit the Hoh Rainforest, sight-see, and be a tourist. I loved it here.

In Seattle, I put the tap shoes up to see what it was like living and working in a place and getting to know the community. I found Top Pop down the street from our apartment. It’s not like anywhere else I’ve worked. I’m almost going on two years working there. I got everything I asked for. I walk down the street, and the little old lady says hi. I know all the dogs in the neighborhood, and I know all the people who work in the neighborhood.

What’s next for you?

I have an offer in the breeze right now. Tap & Jazz at Playhouse on Park in Hartford, Connecticut, was the first show I directed and choreographed back in 2014. The producer called me the other day to ask if I wanted to bring the show back. I’m working on revamping that right now.

There are a couple of opportunities in Seattle—not on the tap front, but on the music front. That’s what I’m looking for. If I wanted to make a show like Tap & Jazz with musicians from here, I could do that. There’s a great jazz scene here. I’m in a good place.

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