On the blurry screen of KFTY news channel 50, a young woman with bouncing curls smiles. The title card below her reads Tara Caprice Howard, Warriors Girl, as she speaks. “Dance to me builds confidence and self-esteem,“ she says. “I started dancing when I was really young and I think that’s what kept me going and helped me to develop the self esteem that I have. It really pushed me in hard times to, you know, excel and succeed.“ 

She would later become a woman named Tara-Caprice Broadwater, known as “Miss Tara” to students at her very own Love2Dance studio and “mom” to her sons Calvin and Russell. 

Miss Tara works hard at both of these roles in her life, but long hours have left her with a need for something new. Combining a high school love for writing poetry and the continuing job of mixing music for her dancers, she’s turned to writing and creating her own sound. The song “Feelin’ Like Me” is the story of her life adapted into a fun, rap-like beat for students to dance to.

I’m a Norcal baby from the 415

Marin county proud, novato cali for life

Tara was born and raised in Novato, California by her single mother. She recalls coming along to her mother’s dance lessons, sitting in the back of classrooms at College of Marin and becoming enraptured with how people’s bodies could move to the music. She also credits her single-parent home with her work ethic. Miss Tara found herself juggling electric bills alongside homework, leaving her endlessly working to buy basic toiletries and make it to her own dance practices. 

When attending Santa Rosa Junior College, she would travel back to her alum, Novato High, two to three days a week to volunteer with the various cheer and dance groups. She had her struggles, but professes a love for the beauty of movement and a wish to share it with her hometown community.

Started teaching dance back in ‘96

2002, opened Love2Dance

As her work spread throughout the county and to San Francisco, she knew she loved teaching, but still wasn’t sure if she could make a living with dance. Pressured by others, she was in the process of becoming a meter maid when she made the Golden State Warriors dance team on her second try. 

Videos online capture many performances from the three seasons she worked, wearing all sorts of costumes, her bleached curls almost always pinned back from her forehead for visibility. “I’d go all around, with a player or the mascot, and try to connect and inspire kids, and I think that gave me the confidence to take the leap to open Love2Dance,” says Miss Tara.

Also to thank for this change was Sadiki Fuller, the team’s mascot at the time. He told the young dancer to make a list of what she wanted to accomplish, and just go for it. Fuller would move on too, to become a stand up comedian up until his death in 2018.

Curly hair, don’t care

Blessed up, full life

Miss Tara starts many of her sentences with the words “I’m fortunate.” She’s fortunate that she loves her life, that she has an incredible staff. “I’m fortunate because my passion is dance and since I love doing it I don’t mind working seven days a week fourteen to sixteen hour days.” 

As a teacher, she’s busy helping students. As a boss, she’s busy cleaning, paying taxes, organizing and filing away. When discussing who might follow in her footsteps, she says “How do you find people who are willing to have no life but work every day? I mean I don’t have any balance in my life.”

Miss Tara concedes that her “brilliant staff” have been asking her to let them help more, and it’s something she’s working on to lighten the load. She adds that she spent the summer reflecting and came to the conclusion that feeling overwhelmed, especially in a big, political world, is combated by doing something good in your own corner of it.

I’m out here sharing wisdom

if you follow my lead 

“Tara always makes a point to make the community as welcoming as it can be,” says Novato High senior and dance team member Elena Seymour. “This season she started a workshop in inclusivity and she had different people present. Someone talked about diabetes, someone talked about anxiety, so we could all understand each other and feel welcome and supported.”

Events like these are at work all throughout the dance studio’s programs, with another group inviting students and parents to give presentations on a new influential woman each week.

The staff at Love2Dance agree on one major point: it is their duties as teachers to cultivate skills in dance alongside those in kindness and mindfulness. Miss Tara says a good dancer must also be a team player, capable of uplifting and working with others on a meaningful level.

Appreciate what you have and who you are all the time

Motivation 100 equals joy and pride

“I want to add how proud I am of myself that I own the building that my dance studio is in,” says Miss Tara. Her business began with under 30 students. Currently, after upgrading in 2014, 2017, and 2019, the facility she owns holds the roughly 600 students that come rushing in week by week to work with Miss Tara or one of her eight employees.

In 2020, while the pandemic caused problems for businesses worldwide, Love2Dance pivoted to outdoor and then online dancing. “We kept everything going. I was really proud that I always paid my mortgage and my rent, I never took any of the bailout money.” Miss Tara says her job is about discipline and persistence, claiming to work harder than anyone else she knows. She’s done it for almost 30 years now, because “I love being part of the community, and I love inspiring my students.”

Remember, you were born to be special

So make today your best day

Miss Tara credits the mother of two of her dancers with the creation of her Shooting Stars. One of her daughters was a four-year-old with Down Syndrome who would open Miss Tara’s eyes to mixed ability performers. The group includes students with autism and Down Syndrome, some of whom have been dancing with Miss Tara for up to 15 years. The teacher says that she remembers students from different groups being afraid of interacting but that, “the dance and music brings everybody together and it’s gorgeous.”

The Shooting Stars are the focus of yet another of Miss Tara’s new songs, labelled “Shine Your Light.” 

The group is treated like any other, with performances at community events and fundraisers, weekly practices, and stunning matching outfits. But some of the dancers are involved with LifeHouse, a local nonprofit with a mission to “improve the quality of life for people with developmental disabilities in our community.” Miss Tara helps this special group of Love2Dance LifeHouse dancers, choreographing their performances at fundraisers for four years now. 

On October 10th of this year, the nonprofit presented her with the Open Arms Award as thanks for all of her contributions. “I don’t do any of the things I do for awards or recognition,” she says. It’s about her love for the community and her need to keep working, keep helping, keep getting better. “Someone has to do it, so it’s just gonna be me.”

It’s time to elevate, because there’s only one you