Tap Dance

1
Tap Dance A Brief History by Wendy Oliver
Savion Glover, 2004
2
Rhythm in Motion

• One of the few dance forms in which hearing the
  dance is as important as seeing it
  
• The dancers creates rhythms, or patterns of
  beats, using metal taps under the toe and heel
  
• Like other dance forms, a standardized vocabulary
  has developed
  
• Most tap dance is choreographed, but it may also
  be improvised
  
• Performance styles have changed over time

3
Tap Styles

• Tap styles include hoofing, class acts, and
  flash acts, among others
  
• Hoofing emphasizes intricate footwork (Savion
  Glover, Gregory Hines)
  
• Class acts emphasize full body movement, with an
  elegant flair (Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers)
  
• Flash acts combine tap with acrobatics (Nicholas
  Brothers)
  
• Soft shoe dancing is simply performing tap steps
  without the taps
  

Frank Sinatra Gene Kelly doing a soft
shoe at the Press Photographers Ball, 1948
4
Roots of Tap

• It is a combination of two distinct cultural
  styles
  
• Tap is uniquely American, and has its roots in
  slavery
  
• Plantation slaves, forbidden to use drums, beat
  out rhythms with their feet, hands, or with
  bones
  
• Plantation masters introduced clogs, jigs, and
  reels from their Irish and English backgrounds
  
• Slaves picked up the steps, altering the arms to
  be much looser, and combining them with their own
  rhythms
  
• Slaves danced for themselves as well as for the
  entertainment of their masters and guests
  
• In New York City in the 1830s, different
  immigrant groups got together to show off their
  varied styles. These included African Americans,
  Irish, Scottish,and English. This allowed a
  blending of characteristics.

5
Early Tap

• Tap continued to develop in the theatre,
  beginning with the minstrel shows of the early
  1800s.
  
• Master Juba was the most famous dancer in black
  minstrel shows in the 1840s he emphasized rhythm
  and percussion in his steps
  
• At this time, dancers did not wear taps on their
  shoes---those were not invented until 1910

Master Juba (1825-1852)
6
Bill Bojangles Robinson

• Vaudeville (late 1800s-early 1900s) also
  showcased tap dance
  
• Bill Bojangles Robinson was the most famous tap
  dancer of this era
  
• The first of many African-Americans who
  popularized tap one of first to have regular
  work in mostly white theatres
  
• Danced in Shirley Temple films in the 1930s

7
The Nicholas Brothers

• Another tap act of the 1930s and later were the
  Nicholas Brothers, Fayard and Harold
  
• They were known for their elegance---they always
  wore suits when they performed
  
• The brothers were show stoppers at the Cotton
  Club, the hottest nightclub in New York
  
• They also appeared in movies including Down
  Argentine Way (1940) and Stormy Weather (1943)
  
• They had amazing acrobatic abilities, which
  including jumping over each others heads in the
  splits, so were known as a flash act

8
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

• Astaire and Rogers were a team who popularized
  tap within musical theatre
  
• They added the element of ballroom dance to the
  mix used balletic elements including graceful
  arms as part of their style
  
• Top Hat (1935) was one of their more famous movies

9
Ann Miller

• Ann Miller was one of Americas top female
  dancing stars in the 1930s-1950s
  
• Anns claim to fame was her speed she was
  listed in Ripleys Believe It or Not as the
  worlds fastest tap dancer. A speedometer
  attached to her feet recorded 598 taps/minute in
  1942!
• She danced in many movies including Kiss Me Kate
  (1953), and did Easter Parade with Fred Astaire

10
Contemporary Tap
Gregory Hines and Brenda Bufalino are two famous
tap artists who became prominent at the end of t
he 20th century. Gregory Hines starred in White
Nights with Baryshnikov in 1985, as well as many
other films. He passed away in 2003.
Brenda Bufalino has her own tap dance company, A
merican Tap Dance Orchestra, and a school in New
York City.

11
Savion Glover

• The best-known contemporary tap star is Savion
  Glover, who choreographed the Broadway show Bring
  in da Noise, Bring in da Funk, which won a Tony
  award in 1996
• He made his Broadway debut at age 12 in the show
  The Tap Dance Kid
  
• Critic Marcia Siegel calls him one of the great
  dancers of the time, saying

hes a noticeably into-the-ground dancer. His
steps seem to go down and down, hardly ever up,
except when he hitches himself from the shoulders
or hauls out of the floor from the hips and back.
His legs compose tremendous volumes of taps,
stamps, swipes, kicks, hops, skids, and
vibrations, and as the surprises roll out, you
also notice that he doesnt do anything stylish
to emphasize them. His arms just rappel off what
his feet are doing, nothing pretty or
picturesque. ( Boston Phoenix, 5/13/2005)
12
Tap continues to be very popular
people of all ages around the world
study and perform it. George Bush, sr.
created a law declaring May 25 National
Tap Day in the US. The date was chosen because it
was Bill Bojangles birthday. Every city around
the country (and some in other countries)
prepares a celebration featuring large numbers of
tap dancers such as the ones seen here.
13
Resources

• http//www.theatredance.com/tap/juba.jpgimgrefurl
  
  
• http//www.loisgreenfield.com/images/galleries/dan
  ce/02_1_AmericanTapDance.jpg
  
• http//www.tapatoe.de/images/startbild.jpg
• http//www.websters-online-dictionary.com/coreimag
  es/historical/LOC cph/3c04001t.gifimgrefurl
  
• http//www.websters-online-dictionary.com/ta/tap.h
  tmlh
  
• Learning about Dance, Nora Ambrosio, Dubuque, IA
  Kendall Hunt, 2003
  
• Tap!, Rusty Frank, New York, NY Da Capo Press,
  1994
  
• Tap Dance in Dance and Culture, Then and Now,
  American Press (in press)
  
• http//www.theatredance.com/tap/
• Dance Magazine, May, 1999.

14
Resources, continued
http//www.culturevulture.net/Television/bojangles
2a.gif
http//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/86/Nich
olasBrothers.jpg
http//i.cnn.net/cnn/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/22/obi
t.miller.ap/story.ann.miller.1.ap.jpg
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tap_dance
http//www.savethegunks.com/images/brendadancing2.
jpg
www.nypl.org/permissions/full/ps_the_cd71_1099.jpg
imgrefurl
www.artsjournal.com/ tobias/archives20050101.shtml

http//www.brookvale-p.schools.nsw.edu.au/EVENTS/2
001/Talent/Pic2.jpg
http//www.bu.edu/bridge/archive/2005/02-11/photos
/arts02.jpg
http//www.chicagotap.com/images/people/timesteppe
rscaption.jpg
http//www.loriart.com/burr/tap_dance_iv_tn.jpg
http//www.orc.ru/konstan/photos/rreed.gif
http//www.meg-tap.com/2005nationaltapday.jpg