The Power of Movement, Creating and Flourishing

What does your body remember that you've forgotten how to say?

Movement gets filed into categories. Exercise, if it's good for you. Performance, if someone is watching. Talent, if you happen to be one of the lucky ones. Creating gets sorted the same way: a gift some people have, a hobby for everyone else, an output to be assessed. What falls out of those categories is the older thing underneath: that people have always moved together to remember, to grieve, to mark what mattered, and to hand something on.

Travis Knights met that idea at age ten, through his teacher and lifelong mentor Ethel Bruneau. Harlem-born and closely tied to the cultural legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, she gave him less a technique than a worldview: that stories can live inside a rhythm, and that a culture lasts only as long as people keep choosing to carry it.

He has worked from that premise for more than twenty years, treating tap not as an art form alone but as a living archive of memory, of resilience, of joy, of survival. It runs through a one-person show where impermanence meet healing and a large-scale imagination of new futures through tap and jazz culture. Underneath all of it sits a short set of convictions: that rhythm is among the oldest technologies humans have for connecting to each other, and that every generation is handed the task of leaving the circle stronger than it found it.

What can tap dance teach us about belonging, creativity and living together? Drawing on over 30 years in this often-misunderstood art form, I’ll share how tap has deepened my connection to my Afro-diasporic culture and helped me understand the power of authentic self-expression. We’ll explore its African American roots, questions of cultural appropriation, and the wisdom of jazz culture in welcoming people to contribute as their full selves. You’ll leave with fresh questions about your own cultural inheritance, curiosity about the cultures around you, and an invitation to participate in shaping a future where we can flourish together. No dance experience needed, just curiosity!

Travis Knights works as a tap dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, educator and cultural producer, and is based in Brampton, Ontario. He has collaborated with artists including Gregory Hines, Savion Glover, Henry LeTang, Ayodele Casel and Lisa LaTouche, and has worked with Tap Dogs, Cirque du Soleil and the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Opening Ceremonies. His own works include Ephemeral Artifacts, The Mars Project and the feature documentary Restorative Culture: Johnathan Morin. He has received the Jacqueline Lemieux Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Dance in Canada and a Dora Mavor Moore Award, and is a Slaight Family Music Associate at Soulpepper Theatre. In 2025 he and Tanya Rivard established Tap Love Tour as a not-for-profit dedicated to preserving and advancing tap dance.

To find out more about Travis's work, visit his website: https://www.travisknights.com/

In a time marked by growing mental health pressures, uncertainty about the future of work, and increasing polarization, the Center for Human Flourishing lecture series equips students, faculty, staff, and community members with research-informed tools to move beyond coping toward flourishing.

Your support helps translate wellbeing and health science into practical learning, strengthen trust and belonging, and position Concordia as a leader in nurturing resilient, engaged communities.

This event is part of the Flourish Fridays series.

Dynamic sessions.

Practitioners at the cutting edge.

Radically different ways to explore the same question:

What does it actually take to thrive?