Breathing Life into a Pair of Fancy Shoes

You know that feeling you get, when your stomach churns inside and it’s almost like it’s trying to escape? That is dance. That is the combination of steps and rhythms, created to make a perfect harmony. This is especially true with tap dance, which is more than just fancy steps. Tap dancing is multiple cultures coming together, sharing ideas, challenging one another, and continually progressing. It has united people all around the world to come together to develop an art form. For this reason I’m spending a semester learning about the history, the dancers, and even creating my own choreography.

My first goal is to learn about the history of tap dance and its influence. Coming into this project, I was believing that tap had a pretty short history, but I was seriously wrong. In Tap Roots, Mark Knowles states that one of the earliest influences was from 1500 B.C. India. Further on, the Irish would contribute immensely by bringing forth clogging and jigging (The Book of Tap). In more recent history, tap has been on the rise and has been popularized through movies such as The Cotton Club and Tap (Black Dance in America). What’s so important about tap dancing is that, throughout tap’s history, this dance style would overcome boundaries of segregation and would be pushed until it became a respected dance form. And while the history is important, the people who make up the history breathe life into the dance form.

My second goal would be looking into the lives of four or five famous dancers who have helped push tap to becoming something greater. For instance, the first tap dancer would be “Juba,”William Henry Lane, and is known as the “World’s Greatest Tap Dancer” (The Book of Tap). Another dancer would be Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, who has been featured in many Broadway shows (Dance Magazine). After reading about many other dancers, I then narrowed my research down to “Juba,” Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards. These dancers have been pushing the limits of tap.

My final goal is creating a well choreographed piece to poetry written by myself. This goal is the one that will take the most time and most effort because in order for it to be nearly flawless, I have to work and rework over and over again. I am pushing myself to create something out of the ordinary. I am both very nervous and very excited for what this dance will bring. When this dance is completed, however, it will be unique and beautiful.

This project has become everything I’ve wanted. It has been helping me push myself to the limit and past it. Even if tap doesn’t suit your fancy, tap is a history and a culture, that stretches  far beyond the United States. A good example would be African Slaves being brought to America because slaves brought with them their own forms of traditional dance which was then cross bred with European styles and culture. This cross breeding helped shape a dance form, but even more then that, helped refine different aspects of many cultures. The real reason I’m doing this, just like everyone else taking ELI, is because it makes me happy.

~Tim M.