Getting creative

When Muriel Tarver’s son, Tyland, was younger, he couldn’t stop dancing. He danced at home; he danced at school; he even danced in grocery stores. Anytime Tyland was up, Tarver said, he was dancing. 

“It wasn’t just normal be-bopping around; it was over-the-top dancing,” she said. “He had so much energy. Honestly, it was kind of annoying.”

When Tyland was nine, Tarver signed him up for a dance battle at The Dance Foundation in Homewood. Tyland, the competition’s youngest dancer, made it to the second round, and Tarver, who admittedly is not much of a dancer, took an interest. 

“When the music dropped, I didn’t know him,” she said of her son. “Out of all the stuff I had seen him doing, I had never seen that before. So that’s how I became a part of dancing.”

Tarver, 49, is now the owner of Creative Mindz Dance Studio and is the founder of Alabama Dance Nation, a network of more than 300 dancers from across the state. And although Tarver took notice of dance during that first battle, it didn’t become part of her life until it was paired with purpose. 

Tyland attended school at Center Street Middle in Titusville, which was, at the time, a failing school and has since been shut down. When the school made a call for donations to buy new uniforms for the football team, Tarver suggested a dance battle fundraiser. 

She called upon the organizers from the Battle Zone competition at The Dance Foundation, and they agreed to help. The fundraiser ended up raising about $1,800, and it became the first of many dance events Tarver would go on to host. 

Creative Mindz started out as a dance crew between Tyland and two friends, but once Center Street Middle closed down, Tarver realized it needed to be much more. In 2012, she opened a dance studio on Sixth Avenue South in Titusville called Creative Mindz. 

Tarver said Creative Mindz became something of an after-school program, where kids got help with their homework before they were allowed to dance. They also received mentorship from their dance teachers, who were college students and older kids from the area. Children of all ages came to the studio, and eventually the studio started catering to the entire community with yoga, Zumba and other exercise classes. 

The studio strictly operated on a volunteer basis, so in 2014, Tarver undertook the project of shifting Creative Mindz into a nonprofit organization. For Tarver, the project was twofold: She wanted to create a place for children to grow in dance and grow as people, but she also wanted to provide opportunities for older dancers to turn their talent into a profession. 

Frequently called “Mama” by her dancers, Tarver has become exactly that to the kids she’s worked with over the past four years. Though she doesn’t teach them how to dance, she said she has taught her students everything from how to shave for the first time to how to order at a restaurant. She’s even sent dancers on their first trip out of the country. She represents 30 dancers who signed three-to-six month professional dance contracts in China. 

“I’m teaching them how to coexist in a community,” she said. “I’ve taken this situation in dance and I’m using it as a teaching tool. They’re like children to me, so it has to be business in order to run, but it’s not really.”

In April of 2015, Tarver moved her studio to the LR Hall Auditorium on 16th Street North and Fifth Avenue North in Birmingham’s Civil Rights District. The three-story building housed a 5,000-square-foot auditorium and 1,400 square feet in studio and office space. In other words, it was the perfect home for Creative Mindz. 

Tarver said she spent thousands of dollars renovating the space, but by the time summer rolled around, she was forced to shut it down because there was no central air conditioning in the building. Recently, however, she found a spot on Seventh Avenue South and 22nd Street, the former La Cocina restaurant, which Tarver said she hopes to move into in the future. 

 In the meantime, she has kept up the organization, sending dancers to perform at events such as the Woodlawn Street Market and hosting a summer camp at Epic Elementary School. Of course, as is the trend with Creative Mindz, its newest reincarnation will include more than just dance. 

Tarver hopes to turn the space into an urban arts studio, where young people can practice and collaborate in all forms of art including dancing, singing, playing instruments and performing spoken word. She hopes to turn the 3,200-square-foot space into a community resource, where classes will be hosted during the day and events put on at night.  

With all she does for Creative Mindz, Tarver somehow makes time for her professional life as a full-time veterinary technician. She is the first African American to sit on the executive board of the Alabama Veterinary Technician’s Association, and she’s seeking further certification in the field. 

Though she doesn’t have much free time, Tarver said managing Creative Mindz doesn’t feel like work. 

“It keeps me alive,” she said. “It’s not like a chore. It’s like I’m doing what I am — I’m being me. It started out being a project for my son, and now it’s part of who I am.”