Tap Dance A Brief History

by Wendy Oliver

Savion Glover, 2004

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

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 tapsFrank Sinatra & Gene Kelly doing a soft

shoe at the Press Photographer’s Ball, 1948

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.

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)

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

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 other’s heads in the splits, so were known as a “flash act”

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

Ann Miller

• Ann Miller was one of America’s top female dancing stars in the 1930s-1950s

• Ann’s claim to fame was her speed: she was listed in Ripley’s Believe It or Not as the world’s 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

Contemporary Tap

Gregory Hines and Brenda Bufalino are two famous tap artists who became prominent at the end of the 20th century.

Gregory Hines starred in White Nights withBaryshnikov in 1985, as well as many other films. He passed away in 2003.

Brenda Bufalino has her own tap dance company, American Tap Dance Orchestra, and a school in New York City.

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:

“…he’s 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 doesn’t 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)

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 NationalTap 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.

Resources

• http://www.theatredance.com/tap/juba.jpg&imgrefurl

• http://www.loisgreenfield.com/images/galleries/dance/02_1_AmericanTapDance.jpg

• http://www.tapatoe.de/images/startbild.jpg

• http://www.websters-online-dictionary.com/coreimages/historical/LOC cph/3c04001t.gif&imgrefurl

• http://www.websters-online-dictionary.com/ta/tap.html&h

• 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.

http://www.culturevulture.net/Television/bojangles2a.gif

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/86/NicholasBrothers.jpg

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/01/22/obit.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.bu.edu/bridge/archive/2005/02-11/photos/arts02.jpg

Resources, continued

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

http://www.chicagotap.com/images/people/timestepperscaption.jpg

http://www.brookvale-p.schools.nsw.edu.au/EVENTS/2001/Talent/Pic2.jpg