biography
Casey Tessier is a professional tap dance artist and award-winning percussionist from Albuquerque, New Mexico. Based of the San Francisco Bay Area, she has devoted her life to honoring, sharing, and advancing percussive dance as an instrumental medium for representation, communication, and inspiration.
Casey began studying tap in Reno, Nevada at the age of 4 with Jeanette Conkey. She continued her studies in Albuquerque with Tracy Ritter-Golson and Luke Loffelmacher with additional training in ballet, jazz, modern, flamenco, and swing dancing. As an adolescent, she performed for many years as a principal tap dancer with the Alley Kats Tap Company and was a nationally recognized jazz drummer with performance credits at the Albuquerque Jazz Festival, Stanford University, and the Umbria Jazz Festival in Perugia, Italy. Casey holds immense gratitude for her mentors Sam Weber, Max Pollak, Manuel Suárez, Sarah Reich, and Nico Rubio.
As a member of Sarah Reich’s Tap Music Project Team, she has traveled to numerous cities throughout the United States, Mexico, and Canada assisting with the production of Sarah Reich’s Tap Music Project intensives highlighting the musicality of tap dance. In San Francisco, Casey performs and tours with Vanessa Sanchez’s La Mezcla: a multi-disciplinary, polyrhythmic ensemble rooted in Chicana, Latinx, and Indigenous traditions. In Oakland, she serves as a resident artist for LoRee Kenagy’s non-profit, TapIN Youth Dance Ensemble, driven by equity in arts education and social justice.
Casey holds a B.S. in Pure Mathematics and Latin from the University of New Mexico. Her unique background continuously infuses the creative direction of her debut ensemble, Accenτap, rooted in the interdisciplinary veneration of vernacular jazz traditions of the African American Diaspora. Casey has nearly a decade of experience as a teaching artist, music educator, and Caption Head in marching percussion, having founded Forge Independent Percussion (2023) and received distinguished visual choreography recognition from Winter Guard International (WGI) (2025).
Casey strives to inspire others by offering an alternative perspective in movement, expression, and performance while communicating her passion for rhythm~