Ayodele Casel has brought joy back into the Joyce Theater. Making a triumphant debut as a leader there on Tuesday, this tap dancer radiated joy and personified it. Joy, unsurprisingly, is the meaning of her name.

Ayodele Casel, a down-to-earth storyteller whose relaxed poise can belie the exceptional quickness and needlepoint intricacy of her footwork. For her début as a Joyce headliner, Sept. 24-29, this excellent musician is bringing along another: the pianist-composer Arturo O’Farrill. His deep, broad knowledge of Afro-Latin jazz is a given, but Casel, who was born in the Bronx and spent some of her childhood in her parents’ homeland of Puerto Rico, understands it, too. Playing together, she and O’Farrill communicate at advanced levels without showing off, following each other’s swerves, from groove to groove, as in a game between friends. A few other musicians and musician-dancers join them in the fun.

If you need any reason to be convinced that tap belongs in a bond with Afro-Latin jazz, buy a ticket to this show. As offered by O'Farrill and Casel, the combined music endlessly cascades like a crystalline stream over a long stretch of rocks, sparkling, glinting in sunlight. It gives life. Casel, in particular, finds innumerable delicate, exquisite facets to bring forth in sound--nothing expected or stale or slapdash; her discipline is steely--and she's joined by a diverse, talented young ensemble that includes Naomi Funaki, Dre Torres, Luke Hickey and Andre Imanishi.

When Casel took a pause to speak about her background in tap, you understand why her one-woman show While I Have the Floor was so successful. She has the emotional, dynamic, and rhythmic nuance of a storyteller, and she beams with such generosity that every heart melts.

WAITING FOR GODOT shines at Spoleto, but surprisingly, the best one-woman show comes from tap dancer Ayodele Casel.

Ayodele Casel taps into her past for her ovation-worthy 'While I Have the Floor'.

" Tap dancer extraordinaire Ayodele Casel gave a powerful performance, complete with a voiceover detailing the challenges she’s had to overcome as a woman working in a man’s world."

One of the night’s biggest and most unexpected showstoppers came from one of the lesser known talents on the St. James stage that night. Casel, the rising Nuyorican tap dancer, grabbed the crowd with a display of virtuosic tapping, performed to a deeply personal spoken-word track she’d recorded. By the time she had finished, half the house was on its feet.

"Ayodele Casel's "Diary of a Tap Dancer," a suite of dances and reminiscences, should be on every tap festival program. It shines light, with humor and warmth, into the hearts and souls of a tired but idealistic tapper (Ms. Casel) and three tap artists (Maya Smullyan-Jenkins, Joseph Wiggan and a boy, Warren Craft) who give her hope."

The program’s brightest spot was Ayodele Casel’s tribute to women in tap, “While I Have the Floor,”.

“That leaves the middle generation, whose representatives on opening night were astounding, all in different ways. Ayodele Casel is a lightweight --- in terms of size, not talent. Small and slender and a little reserved (think Audrey Hepburn), she floats over the floor delivering taps so clean, light, and quick they're like a hummingbird's thrumming.”

“...classy Ayodele Casel is all poetry and polish, her more restrained attack nevertheless fraught with intricacy and detail.”

"Casel dances with a strength most female dancers opt to camouflage with contrived styling. She is an ebullient performer, so full of life that for a little not to rub off on her audience is inconceivable."

"Ayodele Casel, a gracious performer whose warm personality extended up from her pattering toes to her giving smile." -Backstage Magazine

"It would be more apt to say that she perked and scintillated in some of the most fluid tap dancing seen in many a day. It was Casel whose cadences, glowing personality, and technical attributes galvanized. She was the most sensational dancer seen on the program."