Infamous Dance leader Tayren Way. Submitted photo
Three days a week, some very motivated girls gather in an empty room on Elm Street in Fernandina Beach to learn hip-hop dance from Tayren Way. His qualifications? Loving dance and loving his dance troupe, Infamous Dance.
The 25-year-old Fernandina Beach native says he “always” danced in church and started his first “little dance thing” at his church on Elm Street in his mid-teens.
“I have never had any dance training. It’s all from me learning, and YouTube, and loving it,” Way said. “I started with praise dancing, and I just branched out to hip-hop and kept going and going and didn’t stop.”
He grew up, graduated from Fernandina Beach High School and got a job at a bank, not pursuing dance as a career or a hobby.
“I never realized how much I loved dance until I stopped doing it,” he said. He and a friend were doing a lot of dances they found on TikTok, and from that came the idea to create a dance troupe.
“I was like, why not have a group?” he said. “Out of impulse, I’m like, let me start this. At the time, I thought, nobody’s going to join, this is probably not going to do so well. But, I had 30 girls at first.”
So, he started teaching the girls dance on the Charles Eugene Richo Field at the city-owned Peck Center. He said a city staff member noticed him and his dancers and worked with him to find a space. Now, Infamous Dance uses a space at Peck, where they currently practice three times a week.
His 16 dancers range from seven to 16, he said, and none had taken any dance classes before joining Infamous Dance.
“At first, because I was just teaching them, we would do things like fashion show performances,” Way said. “If somebody asked us to come, I would do something really quick. But I didn’t feel comfortable with them putting on a show right away. I want to make sure they do well.”
Now, two years later, the group participates in every community parade and has a show planned for October to celebrate two years of dancing.
But Infamous Dance has gone beyond simply dancing and bonded like family.
“I have a well-rounded group,” Way said. “I have some that are shy and timid; you have to pull it out of them. At first, they were very shy and would not dance around each other. Now, they call each other sisters. I love it. They stick together, from the youngest to the oldest.”
Way says there are no dues paid to join Infamous Dance, just a desire to learn and grow.
“Kids in the community don’t have a lot to do, other than ballet, and some parents can’t afford it,” he said as he gathered his dancers for practice. “When I first got them, they didn’t know anything about dance. But now, I can say, ‘Do an eight count,’ and they can just do it on a whim, and I feel so accomplished. I love them. I tell them, ‘Ya’ll are my kids.’ I don’t need to have any right now.”
jroberts@fbnewsleader.com