Think about tap dance and what comes to mind? Perhaps the virtuosity, precision and glamour of Hollywood film stars like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers\u00a0\u2026\u00a0or maybe the fluid ease of dance-world icons such as Buster Brown or Jimmy Slyde? More than likely, you\u2019d think of old legends from a bygone era. How can an art form so entrenched in American history maintain relevance in the 21st century? Andrew Nemr has been thinking about what\u2019s next in the trajectory of a dance style\u00a0that was first\u00a0taught and shared on the street. Here\u2019s how the dancer, teacher and \u2014 as founder of the Tap Legacy Foundation \u2014 dance historian is trying to make tap\u00a0relevant again. First, the backstory:<\/p>\n
Tap dance is part of America\u2019s social fabric. <\/b>A unique form of percussive dance born in America out of\u00a0African and European traditions, tap evolved alongside the American music that would become known as jazz. \u201cIt\u2019s the one percussive dance born in America that was adopted by the popular media of the country very early on in its development,\u201d says Nemr. Tap dance quickly made the jump into formal entertainment in the earliest days of American theater, evolving in style and technique through the days of minstrelsy and vaudeville, and eventually becoming a staple of the American musical on stage and in film.<\/p>\n
Forget breakdancing. Tap dance is the original street dance. <\/b>In the 1930s, tap dancers would gather on city street corners to trade steps and challenge one another, in a precursor to the B-boy battles of later decades. Philadelphia had a particularly vibrant dance culture. \u201cDifferent corners had reputations for their respective skill level,\u201d says Nemr. \u201cFor example, if you were just starting out, you would go to one corner to dance with other beginner tap dancers. When you thought you were ready, you could move to another corner and see if you could hang with more experienced dancers. And any time you wanted, you could also walk a couple blocks down and watch the pros really dance!\u201d<\/p>\n
Tap dance helped dancers survive during leaner times. <\/b>\u201cThere was a big tree on 7th Avenue in Harlem in New York City, called the Tree of Hope,\u201d says Nemr. \u201cThe dancers who weren\u2019t working used to hang out under this tree because it cast shade. In the 1920s, producers would come down to the tree and book dancers for gigs.\u201d What made this possible: the dancers \u2014 who may or may not have ever danced together \u2014 all knew certain standard dance routines, such as the BS Chorus or the Shim Sham. \u201cWith these dances as a starting point, they could add a few elements like a soft shoe or a slow dance to quickly put together a four-minute act \u2014 the average back then,\u201d says Nemr.<\/p>\n
Traditional tap dances promote community. <\/b>Sadly, the tap dance street corner recruiting ground no longer exists, and tap\u2019s\u00a0popularity waned through the latter half of the 20th century. It\u2019s now taught within the confines of dance schools, where the emphasis is on building virtuosity and artistic vision. Yet those standard dances from the traditional repertoire have survived. \u201cThey were throwaway dances back in the day, but they\u2019ve stuck because everybody used them, and now they form the basis of the dance language,\u201d says Nemr.<\/p>\n
Last August, he used this language to assemble a nearly spontaneous performance at the TED Fellows Retreat in Pacific Grove, California. Nemr brought\u00a0five members of his New York company, Cats Paying Dues, and he put out a call for nine local dancers to join them. The combined group rehearsed once at their first meeting, choreographing a piece using elements of the Shim Sham and BS Chorus. The result? A performance showcasing the rich history of tap dance while an elated group of dancers performed a freshly minted routine, flawlessly.<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t have to be a professional to join in.<\/b>Inspired by the relationships and experiences he\u2019s enjoyed through his collaborations, Nemr is now hoping to share the love. How? By building easier entry points for anyone interested in tap dance. \u201cWe\u2019re going to publish\u00a0a piece on YouTube that\u00a0the entire community can\u00a0learn, perform with us and have a new shared experience,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd at every event I\u2019m a part of, I offer to teach the audience a tap dance step. At some events, entire rooms will stand up with me and try to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n
The real purpose of tap dance? To spread joy. <\/b>Nemr is leading tap full circle back to its roots of community and shared experience. \u201cJimmy Slyde, one of the old guys, and one of my mentors, used to say, \u2018Your job as a tap dancer is to spread joy. That\u2019s what you do.\u2019 When I\u2019m working with a group, I always say: \u2018We get to do this thing that other dancers don\u2019t. We get to share the tradition and art of tap with people \u2014 and have a smile on our faces because we\u2019re having fun.\u2019 The whole thing becomes a play date. We all want to be kids again, to a certain degree, and if I can make those moments happen, that\u2019s a huge gift.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How one dancer is bringing tap dance back. Think about tap dance and what comes to mind? Perhaps the virtuosity, precision and glamour of Hollywood film stars like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers\u00a0\u2026\u00a0or maybe the fluid ease of dance-world icons such as Buster Brown or Jimmy Slyde? More than likely, you\u2019d think of old legends […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/student-activity.binus.ac.id\/stamanara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/student-activity.binus.ac.id\/stamanara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/student-activity.binus.ac.id\/stamanara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/student-activity.binus.ac.id\/stamanara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/student-activity.binus.ac.id\/stamanara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/student-activity.binus.ac.id\/stamanara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":709,"href":"https:\/\/student-activity.binus.ac.id\/stamanara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707\/revisions\/709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/student-activity.binus.ac.id\/stamanara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/student-activity.binus.ac.id\/stamanara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/student-activity.binus.ac.id\/stamanara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/student-activity.binus.ac.id\/stamanara\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}