Tap dance practitioner and educator Robyn Watson hosts an exploration of Tap as a root that feeds Broadway, Motown, music videos, pop culture, and more.
Dance Interactive Video Excerpts of Tap Performances at Jacob’s Pillow
Dance Interactive Multimedia Essays on Tap curated by Brian Seibert
[Music begins, composed by J.S. Bach, performed by Jess Meeker]
Norton Owen: Welcome to PillowVoices, a production of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival with content from the Pillow archives. I'm Norton Owen, the Pillow’s Director of Preservation, and it's my pleasure to introduce Robyn Watson as this episode’s host. Watson has been engaged in the art form of tap dance as a learner, performer, choreographer, writer and educator for over 30 years. A learner and practitioner with Germaine Ingram, Dianne Walker and Savion Glover, among others, she’s a full-time Professor of Dance at Muhlenberg College.
Norton Owen: In recent decades, Jacob’s Pillow has evolved into a place where tap artists perform to sold out audiences, culture bearers convey their tap histories during PillowTalks, tap dancers train in the School with leading innovators, tap collaborators exchange with each other during creative residencies, and scholars come to the Archives along with the general public to view tap performance footage and interviews. This fertile ground for tap was certainly not always so welcoming. For the Pillow’s first 40 years, founder Ted Shawn explicitly excluded tap dance and encouraged dance educators to do the same, which Watson speaks to directly in this episode where she describes tap as a root that feeds Broadway, Motown, music videos, pop culture and more.
Robyn Watson: Prior to a tap dance program at The School at Jacob’s Pillow, its founder Ted Shawn explicitly expresses his opinions of the specific art form in his 1937 booklet, The Fundamentals of a Dance Education. Here is a portion of what Shawn said:
“We should use every influence we have to restrict tap dancing to those places where it belongs—places of cheap entertainment—and to keep it out of those places where it decidedly does not belong—educational institutions, fine dancing schools catering to the children of the best families, and the home.”
Although today in many dance spaces, this opinion has been altered in various ways, including musicals with inclusive tap dance numbers, to exclusive tap dance concerts, to residencies, to genius awards to even, yes, tap dance being offered in higher education dance programs. An example is shown by dance critic, Brian Seibert in his 2017 multimedia essay for the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Interactive, “Roll Over, Ted Shawn” which is linked in the show notes for you to explore. However, outside of dance spaces, the narrative of tap dance is still often fragmented and falls in line with Shawn’s opinion. But whether due to ignorance by choice or not…tap dance has always been at the root.
Let’s listen to a clip from the 2005 PillowTalk with legends Dr. Savion Glover, Dianne Walker and the late, great Dr. Jimmy Slyde with dance scholar Maura Keefe. Here Slyde and Walker speak about the meaning of the hoofer’s line to them.
Maura Keefe: For those of you who have seen the show this afternoon, the first thing that, or earlier this week, or if you will see it tonight, the first thing we see is kind of a hoofers line and this is really a masters hoofer line that starts the show here. And we talked about it a little bit the other night after the show. But could you say something about what that line means and the history of tap and what it means to be standing on that line?
Jimmy Slyde: Everything. It’s the beginning, the ongoing, and the what’s to come in dance.
Audience members: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Maura Keefe: It's the history, Dianne, what about, what’s it mean to you about being on the hoofer’s line like that?
Dianne Walker: It’s a moment of reflection, it’s a moment of gratitude, it’s a moment of expression, it’s a moment of inclusion, it’s a moment [Slyde: Yeah]. It’s a moment. It’s an honorific moment.
Robyn Watson: Allow me to dig into some brief tap dance history: Tap dance’s history began and remains as narrative, from a response to drums being made illegal during the country's institution of slavery. To the mothers of ring shout to William Henry Lane being known as the father of tap dance, to King Rastus Brown delivering our first known time steps, to Luther “Bill” Bojangles Robinson literally lifting the art form up on its toes while being its official poster child, while defying ageism in the entertainment world, and John William Sublett, also known as John “Bubbles” being the revolutionary that he is, reminding us all that this art form is as much music as it is dance.
I also acknowledge the Whitman Sisters who are probably the original contributors of the Shim Sham Shimmy, the tap dance chorines of the 1921 Broadway sensation, “Shuffle Along,” who became the main contributor to how an ensemble would function on the Broadway stage moving forward. To Jeni Legon who became the first Black woman to receive an MGM contract. I also acknowledge some of our least sung heroes, like Louise Madison, Juanita Pitts, Lois Bright and Cora LaRedd who defied gender norms during their time in this space. So all of this to say: tap dance is not new to being a storyteller. This case especially for the contribution of Black women using this art form to maintain and preserve identity during an oppressive and inhumane time. So all of this to say, that tap dance is culture before it is concert.
Tap dance literally changed Broadway. Edna Battles, Mildred Brown, Hazel Burke, Goldie Cisco, Jeanie Day, Bea Freeman, Marion Gee, Adelaide Hall, Evelyn Irving, Lucia Johnson, Mamie Lewis, Marie Roberts, Ruth Seward, Paula Sullican, Marguerite Weaver, Theresa West, Beatrice Williams, Lillian Williams and Lula Wilson are the chorines from 1921 Broadway sensation “Shuffle Along.” Their work on this production would lead to the evolution of what the Broadway ensemble is today.
The first Black woman to receive an MGM extended contract was a tap dancer. Although Jeni Legon was first known as the adult woman to tap dance alongside Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, she also shattered glass ceilings into the film industry and then left when the industry dehumanized her. The next Black woman to receive a long term contract with MGM was Lena Horne. I remember watching a clip of Ms. LeGon dancing with Bill “Bojangles” Robinson from the 1935 film Hooray For Love. I was delighted. To see a woman I could resonate with from skin tone to hair texture, made me feel valued and seen in this art form, even as a young girl. Around the age of 19 or 20, I had the opportunity to attend a dance festival that was honoring Ms. LeGon. It was beyond an honor to be in the same space with her.
Mr. Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, who is still the most popular image of tap dance, challenges the notion of ageism not just in dance, but entertainment when he stars in Lew Leslie’s 1928 musical revue, Blackbirds. Mr. Robinson was 50 when he assumed the role. This would be the launchpad of his solo career.
While swing was the pop music during the 1930s and 1940s, it was tradition for a tap dancer to be a member of the band. During that time, the complexities of the dancer’s rhythms would lead to the evolution of bebop. Legendary jazz drummer, Mr. Max Roach mentions in the 1985 documentary The Cotton Club Remembered about the influence that tap dancers had on musicians as well as to bebop’s evolution. Let’s take a listen with Mr. Roach followed by a drum and tap dance exchange with Mr. Roach and iconic Harold Nicholas.
David Attenborough: Isn’t it true that a lot of the drummers were influenced by tap dancers?
Max Roach: Yes, it’s true.
David Attenborough: Tell us about that, how does that work?
Max Roach: Well it’s the sound, rhythms and how they phrase rhymes and uh from Bill Robinson on up to people like Chuck Green, Baby Lawrence, so it’s a part of it. And Harold Nicholas, we in fact when I did start playing we would do routines with dancers, drummers and dancers. And then many drummers tried to dance [laughs].
[Drumming and tap solo dance sounds]
[Audience applauds]
Robyn Watson: Before the job of backup dancer, there was vocal choreography, for example “My Girl” by The Tempations, and the person who was evolving this space was, yes, a tap dancer, The legendary Dr. Cholly Atkins. He speaks in this clip from a 1998 PillowTalk with dance scholar Sally Sommer and Dr. Jimmy Slyde about his experience as a tap dancer informing his work as a vocal choreographer.
Sally Sommer: This was the initiation of course of music video, as I said, but it was that tap mentality that made this possible.
Jimmy Slyde: Well that’s for sure there is a very close association, very difficult for most people to see, but you have to consider the source. I was a tap dancer, you know. And I just happened to be a jazz tap dancer. Before I started tap dancing, I was just a loose street jazz dancer. Like all other kids. But then I learned how to tap and I would inject that into, my tap with the jazz feeling. It was easy for me to make the transition because I had a working knowledge of music, and, and to put the two together was no problem for me. You count the six bars, you take the guys out of the mic area, if they are not singing, and back ‘em back in time for them to sing. And if they are not singing, get ‘em out of the mic area [audience laughs]. It’s all these things that I brought to, to the performance of the vocal groups, you know. They would just stand behind the mic for half a chorus, you know. Twenty rows back people who don’t know who is singing, if everyone is behind the mic. If you move everyone back from the mic except for the one left at the mic, psychologically you say [laughs], he is singing [everyone laughs]. So those are the things I brought to vocal choreography.
Robyn Watson: Historian Sally Sommer also offers a nugget about Michael Jackson being a by-product of tap dancing by way of working with Dr. Atkins which shows that tap dance is at the root of even…pop culture.
Sally Sommer: And this is the man.
Cholly Atkins: And they have been successful ever since [Sommer: Yeah. This is…] that’s how you came to know about Motown…
Sally Sommer: That’s right. That’s right [Atkins: because Motown] you had something to see and something to hear. It was a lot more than just the record. And the coincidence of the invention of television at the time was fortuitous because it allowed for the visual expression and the auditory expression to reach literally billions of people through the media. This is the father by the way of the music video. Most people don’t know that but this is it [Atkins: That’s him] [audience applauds] [a couple of unclear words by Atkins]. People think it’s Michael Jackson or something, uh uh. Okay, put this in. Let’s look at this.
Cholly Atkins: Michael Jackson was the fruit of it…
Sally Sommer: That’s right. That’s right. Yeah, ‘cuz you worked with him, didn’t you?
Cholly Atkins: The moonwalk was the get off…
Robyn Watson: The influence of tap dance even heads into the fashion industry and comedy spaces. Fashion icon and advocate, Bethann Hardison speaks about her experience as a child tap dancer informing her approach to modeling. Comedian royalty Moms Mabley also tap danced. So again and again and again, tap dance is at the root.
Then why is the narrative and the conversation of tap dance outside of the dance space often placed in as an act of inhumane behavior? One recent example is from May 26, 2024. The Hollywood Reporter uploaded an Actress in Comedy Roundtable on their YouTube channel. In that roundtable, the host quoted one of the comedians. She speaks about “tap dancing” for the studios essentially for approval. Let’s take a listen:
Michelle Buteau: I’ve been tap dancing for the patriarchy for a good while and my knees are tired, but fish oil helps [laughter]
Robyn Watson: Of course, I cringed. Watching it made me think of a glorious plant explicitly insulting and mocking its roots even though the roots are responsible for the plant's glory. Unfortunately, this comedian's rhetoric wasn't shocking or new. From lines in scripts and lyrics in songs to entertainers speaking about their struggles in interviews, using the term “tap dance” as an act of humiliation to impress someone in power so they can enter into the next space of success. And often they are speaking in the context of minstrelsy. Other genres of dance are not used or even mentioned. This dismisses not the complexity and nuance of tap dance, but keeps the continuity that Ted Shawn mentioned in his book in 1937. Moreover, it disregards the origins of the art form which is rooted in practices of the enslaved Africans in America. It's lovely that tap dance looks like it's here to stay at the Pillow and among other dance hosting spaces. But what about outside of those spaces? And how does that impact the next group of tap dancers who will in some way, shape and form preserve this dance? Can this artform that roots American culture be well without being mocked? That is a hope I have as a learner, performer, choreographer, writer and educator of this glorious art form who continues to aim to prioritize and carry the culture of this dance over the concert of this dance. I’ll close with the legendary Dr. Savion Glover from a 2005 PillowTalk where he reflects on tap dance residing within society.
Savion Glover: I’m just talking about acceptance… I’m just talking about we exist, just like the playoffs [audience laughs]. You know. We exist. Just like the world cup. Just like the heavyweight fighter or whoever is about to win the champion, you know. We’ve had presidents, we’ve had champions, we’ve had chefs. All of these wonderful embodiments exist in the dance world. You dig? We have kings and queens [audience laughs] and honorables in the dance world. Everything that exists out here in the world, we hold those same humans, those same...you know, we are no longer, you know, trying to revive tap or, or keep it alive, you know. It was dead, it was dead then because they killed it [audience laughs and claps]. We just beat the dead horse basically. We just keeping that thing, you know, keeping that thing struttin'. But we just want people to know that it’s, it’s, it’s no more, there shouldn’t be anymore talk of "Oh this dance is a dying artform." That’s old. That's old [Unidentified voice: Old statement] old statement [laughter].
Maura Keefe: So, maybe, is that what led you to make those, that series of ads with Nike, to, with the basketball players, to get to a different kind of audience or to show people how present tap really can be? The freestyle ads?
Savion Glover: Nah that was just [Unidentified voice: work] [audience laughs]. That was a gig [laughs]. That had nothing to do with the dance [Audience laughs and claps]. That was, that was, something totally different. That was, um, that was to show the ballplayers that, you know, they are dancing [Unidentified voice: Yeah], you know, they, they’re doing rhythm, they, you know, too. When I watch some of the games, I usually got the music going and the TV on mute [audience laughs]. And they go Bam! they shooting jump shots to my downbeats [audience laughs]. That was just to show them, you know, that they also have that rhythm in them and that movement in them.
[Music begins, composed and performed by Jess Meeker]
Norton Owen: That’s it for this episode of PillowVoices. Thank you for joining us today. On behalf of Jacob’s Pillow we look forward to sharing more dance with you through the films, essays, and podcasts at danceInteractive.jacobspillow.org and of course through live experiences during our Festival and throughout the year. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts for helping launch this podcast series. Please subscribe to PillowVoices wherever you get your podcasts and visit us soon, either online or onsite.