As soon as she hears a song, Chloé Arnold knows if she wants to tap to it. “I’m a very feeling person. I like to feel the rhythm in my soul and feel like I have no choice but to dance,” she says. “Tap is music, so it’s a dual experience of creating. I hear rhythms in my head all day, and it’s about how those rhythms, the tap rhythms, complement the rhythms that already exist in a song.”

Arnold and her tap dance band, Syncopated Ladies, have recently garnered a lot of attention. “I always knew tap was what I wanted to do, and I wanted to put it on film and get it to the world,” she says. They won the first dance crew battle on “So You Think You Can Dance,” Season 11, and their YouTube views increased after Beyoncé shared their video to her song “Formation.” Their performance on “Good Morning America” is Arnold’s favorite moment as a performer and choreographer—so far.

When she teaches master classes, Arnold stresses to students the need for connection. “It’s the ability to connect that makes an audience feel an artist,” she says. “I want students to connect to the space we’re in, the time we’re sharing, with me and every other person in the room, with the music and with the movement. Through that connection, we’re communicating.”