Tap in the city: ATDF's "Rhythm in Motion" takes wing

American Tap Dance Foundation presented
Rhythm in Motion at ATDF's Tap City festival.
(photo: Amanda Gentile)

This year's Rhythm in Motion--part of the well-loved TAP CITY, the summer festival of all things tap--might be artistic director Tony Waag's best show ever. No trace of bloat, fluff or cornball, just expert, all-in, radiant power tap for nearly two hours. This is tap right on time and into the future. And diverse aesthetic styles with something for everyone--from lovers of Brazilian samba to Fats Waller to Steve Reich--and millions (they wish) served. Really, if you came away not finding something to cheer hard about here, I'm worried about you.

I regret that this show--presented at Symphony Space, long-time partner with Waag's American Tap Dance Foundation--ran only one night. People, can we do something about this sort of thing? The show I saw last night felt downright historic. Certainly, there were standout and breakout dance artists on the bill, and a viewer might even start contemplating...hmmm, yeah....some award nominations. Just sayin'. But, seriously, Bessies committee, start taking a wide-angled look at some of what's happening in tap these days.

I loved so much, but I will long remember the matchless, grounded, joyous confidence of Brinae Ali's Ndizzy Spellz; the always-surprising Caleb Teicher falling off his high heels then proceeding to kill it with yet one more unexpected strategy around tap and space and theatricality; and the all-women Full Circle Hardrocks's sharp cheerleader moves for Rokafella's The Drums Say Africa; and Lisa La Touche's Tap Phonics trio in the propulsive, offbeat Fragile. These artists do more than make tap "relevant" today; they offer no excuse to ignore tap.

Also serving some awesome tap on this program:Chloe Arnold and Robin Passmore, Christina Carminucci, Michelle Dorrance (with collaborating choreographer/improvisers Hannah Heiler, Melinda Sullivan and Josette Wiggan), Felipe Galganni, Charles Renato, Tami Sakurai, Delores Sanchez, Leo Sandoval, Samara Seligsohn and Nicholas Van Young.

Rhythm in Motion is closed, but there's one more event (Friday, July 13) you can enjoy before the season finishes up:

"TAP IT OUT" -- a free, public outdoor tap dance event at 1pm, 1:30pm, and 2pm at Father Duffy Square/Times Square (Broadway, West 46th Street to West 47th Street, 7th Avenue, Manhattan). Adult and pre-professional students create a chorus of hundreds of tapping feet. The contemporary percussion and movement "soundscape" promotes tap dance as pure music, while consciously deconstructing the basic elements that propel tap forward.

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It's a milestone: Nierenberg films on tap at Quad Cinema

The late tap dance great Chuck Green in Harlem
At right, Harold "Sandman" Sims and Bunny Briggs
(still from No Maps on My Taps, 1979,
by George T. Nierenberg, courtesy of Milestone Films)

Two more giants of the art:
Gregory Hines embraces his mentor Jimmy Slyde.
(photo: George T. Nierenberg, courtesy of Milestone Films)

Time has taken from us all of the beloved master innovators and mentors shown in the photos above. But contemporary tap lives and shines in exemplars like Savion Glover, Michelle Dorrance, Jason Samuels-Smith, Chloe Arnold, Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, Derick Grant, Ayodele Casel, Max Pollak, Roxane Butterfly, Caleb Teicher and a slew of eager youngsters coming up behind them. That torch keeps getting passed and won't go out as long as there are places where people can see and appreciate the riches tap has to offer.

Filmmaker George T. Nierenberg was an early hero in tap's recovery from the rise of television and rock 'n' roll, changes in the nature of choreography for Broadway musicals, and the subsequent loss of tap venues and gigs. His two intimate and beautiful films, No Maps on My Taps (1979) and About Tap (1984), featuring chats and performances by Chuck Green, Bunny Briggs, Harold "Sandman" Sims, Steve Condos and Jimmy Slyde, helped revive interest in the art and turned on new generations of dancers and dance educators. In 2014, American Tap Dance Foundation presented Nierenberg with its American Tap Dance Preservation Award.

Film producer/director George T. Nierenberg
(photo: George T. Nierenberg, courtesy of Milestone Films)

At Manhattan's Quad Cinema, Milestone Films will now present the first theatrical release of No Maps on My Taps (58 min) and About Tap (28 min), digitally restored from the original camera negatives, for a week-long run coinciding with ATDF's popular Tap City: The New York City Tap Festival.

I can only say, GO! You cannot fail to enjoy these films and be moved by these artists. If you can, please take some young folks who might think tap has nothing to do with them. It has everything to do with musicality, mad skills, collaboration, imagination, feeling and excellence. So, yes, it has everything to do with them.

No Maps on My Taps and About Tap open at Quad Cinema on Friday, July 7 and run through Thursday, July 13. Schedule information and ticketing will be available onsite tomorrow, Monday, July 3.

For Tap City 2017--which, once again, includes everything from shows and screenings to a ride on the Circle Line--click here to see some of what's up with tap today and what's coming tomorrow.

Quad Cinema
34 West 13th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Celebrating a world of tap in New York

The world is a stage. 

The stage is a world of entertainment.

Arthur Schwartz/Howard Dietz, "That's Entertainment"

Tony Waag, mayor of Tap City
at last year's Tap It Out event at Battery Park City
(photo by Eva Yaa Asantewaa)

Thanks to Tony Waag's week-long Tap City summer fest, New Yorkers get to see and hear what a world of artists has made of the great American art of tap dance. The festival's "Tap Internationals" performance program--showcasing performers from the four winds and local talent working out to global rhythms--has long been my favorite Tap City feature. I only regret that we get but one chance per year to see it.

Last evening's show at Symphony Space has come and gone, taking with it these most engaging experiences:

Tembang Alit: a gem of a solo for Claudia Rahardjanoto (Chinese-Indonesian native of Germany), who played clear, discrete steps like tinkling bells against Cicilia Yudha's equally spare and delicate piano work

Kazu Kumagai
(photo by Leslie Kee)

Journey to the Soundscape: a solo for Japan's arresting Kazu Kumagai, an all-time favorite of mine, who channels dissonance and passion, taking tap to a stormy place beyond the familiar sunshine

Confirmation: another solo, this time splashed across space by Corey Hutchins (from Connecticut), a bold, original stylist with variegated musicality

Tap en Clave: crackling rumba riding atop taps by wiry live-wire Jaime Moran of Cuba

Not to forget El Guararey de Pastora, a handsome arrangement of song, body percussion and tap created by Max Pollak for his Rumba Tap ensemble, looking and sounding better than ever

And more:

Carson Murphy aglow, a model of confident ease and flow in the cast of Nicholas Young's Environments

Brenda Bufalino
(photo by Lois Greenfield)

Brenda Bufalino, master performer/educator at her best here, laying out fluttery, skimming tuneful steps and showing the kids how it's done

Speaking of kids, Susan Hebach and Tamii Sakurai have done a magnificent job of staging Molutsi Mogami's Izzici (Stomping Feet) for seventeen teen dancers from Tap City Youth Ensemble. The youngsters demonstrated high discipline and coordination--as individuals and as a group--in this demanding South African boot dance.

Which brings me to Tap Future. There is one. Watch American Tap Dance Foundation's students do their thing tonight at 8pm. Check in here, and hurry! Tickets go quickly.

But if you don't make it tonight, you don't even need tickets for tomorrow afternoon's Tap It Out extravaganza. Just head to Father Duffy Square in Times Square (map/directions) tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon to see a huge ensemble--160 dancers in all, at last count--performing 20-minute shows at noon, 1pm and 2pm.

For more about the American Tap Dance Foundation, click here.

A world on tap

Cartier Williams at "Tap It Out" (c)2012, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Get ready to get tap happy when, once again, New York City becomes Tony Waag's Tap City (July 6-13).

My favorite part of American Tap Dance Foundation's legendary summer extravaganza has always been TAP INTERNATIONALS, an evening that luxuriates in the worldwide, cross-cultural phenomenon that tap dance has become. Enjoy the latest edition on Thursday, July 11 (7:30pm) at Symphony Space:

A global community of artists that  include international soloists, contemporary tap ensembles, raw talent and leading tap masters, will combine tap dance with world music, body percussion, gumboot, funk, swing, step dance, vocals, film, and storytelling.

Brenda Bufalino (US)
Flavia Costa (Brazil)
Felipe Galganni (Brazil)
Corey Hutchins (US)
Chikako Iwahori (Japan)
Ryan Johnson (US)
Kazu Kumagai (Japan)
Lisa La Touche (Canada)
Winston Morrison (Australia)
Claudia Rahardjanoto (Germany/Indonesia)
Rumba Tap (Cuba)
Lynn Schwab (US)
Tap City Youth Ensemble (Africa/US)
Nicholas Young (US)

Get complete information and tickets for Tap Internationals here.

For comprehensive information on the 2013 Tap City festival, click here.

Peter J. Sharp Theatre
Symphony Space
Broadway at 95th Street, Manhattan
(map/directions)

Tap City 2011-2012 Awards

Last year, the American Tap Dance Foundation missed the chance to give out its annual tap community awards (given since 2002). It made up for that lapse by doubling up the awardees last evening at a fun and often moving ceremony at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

The program commenced with ATDF head Tony Waag's slide montage of past winners of the Tap Preservation Award and Hoofer Award as well as inductees to the International Tap Dance Hall of Fame. The fourth honor afforded ATDF recipients is known as the Toe Knee Award--a play on Waag's name, his sometimes nickname and that little Broadway thing--which recognizes stalwart supporters. Waag surprised his two sisters--Stephanie Waag Blackmon (who was on hand) and Cindy Roush, as well as Boston-based tap instructor/producer Thelma Goldberg, with the coveted Toe Knee.

Two of the vaudevillian Whitman Sisters, including Alberta "Bert" Whitman in male drag

A video or slide show or music and dance performances prefaced each of the other awards. Highlights were many, including Sally Sommer's loving tribute to Hall-of-Famer Charles "Cholly" Atkins (1913-2003), notable not only for the cool wit of his performing but also his expert dance coaching of many of Motown's hottest acts; a dramatic slide show tracing the history of vaudeville's remarkable Whitman Sisters act, about whom, regrettably, there is no film documentation; Michela Marino Lerman gifting jazz and tap show producer Cobi Narita (Cobi's Place), a Tap Preservation Award winner, with a shimmering solo; and Max Pollak's Rumba Tap ensemble serving up a vivacious new Afro-Cuban voice-and-dance number before longtime dancer/colleague Chikako Iwahori, presenting Pollak's Hoofer Award, spoke of his formidable intensity and generosity. A momentarily overwhelmed Pollak recovered enough to quip, "Being the only Austrian who has ever gotten this award makes me want to have a beer with you all."

A trio of angels--"Charlie's Angels," from Jason Samuels Smith's recent Joyce Theater show--dropped in to rock the house, praise their champion and hand him a well-deserved Hoofer Award. It was a treat to see Chloé Arnold, Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards in action again so soon after the Joyce gig and to hear their stories. (Arnold on meeting Samuels Smith for the first time: JSS: "You tap?" CA: "Yeah, I tap." JSS: "We'll see.")

For more information on ATDF's remaining Tap City 2012 events (through July 13), click here.

TAP CITY 2011-2012 AWARDEES

2011 International Tap Dance Hall of Fame

Cholly Atkins

2012 International Tap Dance Hall of Fame

The Whitman Sisters Legacy

2011 Toe Knee Award

Stephanie Waag Blackmon and Cindy Roush

2012 Toe Knee Award

Thelma Goldberg

2011 Tap Preservation Award

Jacqui Malone

2012 Tap Preservation Award

Cobi Narita

2011 Hoofer Award

Max Pollak

2012 Hoofer Award

Jason Samuels Smith

Tap tap tap tap tap...Tap City!

It's the 25th Anniversary of the remarkable American Tap Dance Foundation. As expected, there's so much to tap impresario Tony Waag's annual Tap City fest in New York--classes for all ages and levels of experience, performances, film screenings, a boat ride--that a tap lover's head can swim. Just pop over to this link and start your journey.

A couple of new things I'm looking forward to:

TAP CITY - TAP CHALLENGE
Tuesday, July 10 (7pm)

The Tap City Tap Competitions is the first of its kind that specializes in the many diverse styles, modes, grooves, and musical time signatures of tap dance. The Tap City Tap Competitions will focus on three different styles to be announced early enough for the dancers, teachers and choreographers to prepare. Because our interests lie in the advancement of this art form, we aim to further the perception and the presentation of Tap Dance in a comprehensive manner by demanding only excellence in execution, interpretation, musicality and choreography. Each participant will critiqued by an expert panel of judges.

Click here to register.

TAP IT OUT
Friday, July 13 (Three showings: 12pm, 1pm and 2pm)

A free, public and outdoor event performed downtown at the World Financial Center Marina as part of the acclaimed River to River Festival. Tap City participants will join local professionals in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the American Tap Dance Foundation.

Click here for details.

ATDF partners with 

Collective for Dance Writing and New Media

And don't forget that ATDF and the new Collective for Dance Writing and New Media are co-sponsoring Writing on Tap: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Tap But Were Afraid to Ask on Saturday, June 23 at American Tap Dance Center--open to dance writers, dance artists and the general public.

Come join us and meet Constance Valis Hill (author of Tap Dancing America, A Cultural History) and three award-winning, fantabulous dance artists--Brenda Bufalino, Derick K. Grant and Michelle Dorrance.

For complete information and (required) reservation, please click here!

Tap City 2011 scholarships

American Tap Dance Foundation scholarships are available to dancers ages 6-19 to attend Tap City 2011 for one of the following programs:

• Mini-Fest

• Youth Program

• Pre-Professional Program

• Adult Program

A scholarship application can be found here and is due by May 1st with the $35 registration fee. Scholarships cover the cost tuition only, not any additional fees or tickets associated with the program.

Please contact Courtney Runft, Youth Program Coordinator and Registrar, with any questions you may have regarding scholarships at crunft@atdf.org or by calling ATDF at 646-230-9564.

ADTF celebrates Tap 25 -- 25 years
Tap City 2011
July 5-10
Click here for the schedule and more information.

ATDC: floors now open for business!

Last evening, I dropped by the American Tap Dance Foundation's new hub, the American Tap Dance Center, over on Christopher Street where the wine was flowing and the tap shoes tapping and, for one breath-catching moment, all was right with the world. Congratulations, again, to the effervescent Tony Waag--mayor of Tap City and ATDF's artistic and executive director--and his board and staff for creating this charming, welcoming homebase for tap students of all ages.

ATDC is located in the far West Village at 154 Christopher Street (#2B), between Greenwich and Washington Streets. Travel options: #1/PATH/Crosstown M8 to Christopher. A/C/E/F/V/B/D to West 4th Street. Walk west on Christopher from any station. 

Coming up at ATDC

Saturday, February 13

6-7pm: Tap historian and author Constance Valis Hill will sign her Tap Dancing America: A Cultural History.

7-9pm: Tap Talks/Tap Films presents archival and rarely seen tap films plus a panel discussion moderated by Constance Valis Hill and including Brenda Bufalino, Derick Grant and other notable tap dance choreographers.

To get information on youth and adult classes (including ones for absolute beginners), intensives, the Winter Tap Jam (2/14) and other special events, click here or contact the center's office: registrar@atdf.org or 646-230-9564.

Waag taps out a space for tap

Tony Waag, director of the American Tap Dance Foundation (ATDF), has signed a 10-year lease for a studio/rehearsal space exclusively for tap--the new American Tap Dance Center. The 3000 square foot space, located on Christopher and Washington Streets, will house three studios for tap classes and rehearsals, as well as the foundation's administrative offices.

"The reality is that for more than a century, tap has fought for its place on the legitimate stage," Waag notes. "Appropriate venues where dancers, both aspiring and professional, can perfect their craft are limited. Even necessities, such as the special floor and the shoes, add to the complexity of trying to legitimize the art form. There is also the deep-seated notion that tap lacks composition and, in turn, training and artistry, because improvisation is so much a part of the art form."

ATDF is one of only a handful of dance organizations committed to ensuring that tap's great performers receive recognition, alongside the masters of ballet and modern and jazz dance.

News of the lease-signing comes as ATDF swings into its wildly-popular New York City summer festival--Tap City. For further information on Tap City events and resources, click here.

Got that swing!

Brenda Bufalino
(photo by Lois Greenfield)

In a recent rehearsal at Stepping Out Studios, big swinging tap master Brenda Bufalino and her dancers were looking good as they worked through reconstructions of her works, supported by NEA's "American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius" grant.

Bufalino will be one of several awardees honored at the 2009 Tap City Awards Ceremony, July 8 (8pm), at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Bruno Walter Auditorium, 111 Amsterdam Avenue (65th Street).

Tap City 2009 opens this coming Monday, July 6 (9:30pm) with Jam@Joe's, a tap jam at Joe's Pub at the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street. 212-967-7555

For the complete schedule of all Tap City festival classes, events and ticketing, visit the American Tap Dance Foundation site, call 646-230-9564 or email registrar@atdf.org.

Tap City's Tony Waag

I'm convinced that Tony Waag is one of those people put on earth to help me find my smile when I most need it, and I'm not alone in this feeling. Everyone who has ever seen Tap City loves Tony, its producer, director and often goofily-charming MC.

As artistic and executive director of the American Tap Dance Foundation, Tony has a broad perspective on all facets of this art--from its rich history to its modern revival, dynamic present and future possibilities. In August 2007, I ran into Tony at a Lincoln Center Out of Doors show where we watched Roxane Butterfly and her tap company, Worldbeats. We agreed to meet again and talk tap.

For more information about ATDF and its programs, visit http://www.atdf.org.

MP3 File

Ayodele Casel and Jason Samuels-Smith

An interview with tap superstars, producers and educators Ayodele Casel and Jason Samuels Smith (July 2007)

MP3 File

Podcast interview with tap superstars Ayodele Casel and Jason Samuels-Smith

What a thrill to have tap superstars Ayodele Casel and Jason Samuels Smith as my first interviewees on Great Dance Podcast, the new series produced by Great Dance blogger Doug Fox! Their openness, generosity and exuberance made our half-hour just fly by, and I know you'll sense the passion and serious dedication they bring to their craft. Check them out at Tony Waag's great Tap City festival, running this week, Wednesday through Saturday at the Duke on 42nd Street. For a schedule of programs and ticketing details, click here. And don't forget to subscribe to Great Dance Podcast!