Today I’d like to talk a little about Savion Glover, who is one of (if not THE MOST) famous living tap artists. This is from 2002:
And if you are saying, well, I never heard of this guy, I guess today you are going to learn about this guy. But I bet you know THIS guy:
Mumble’s dance is choreographed by, and mo-capped from, Savion Glover.
This guy. This guy is SKILLED, ok? He’s in his 50s now; he’s been a professional tapper for over FORTY YEARS – he made his Broadway debut at age 11. He’s in that movie, Tap, that I linked a clip from above. Sometimes his tap seems a little old-fashioned – other times it is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. This is intentional – he’s paying tribute to his teachers and tappers of the past by learning and performing their signature moves, but also he’s got his own style.
It is absolutely worth going through whatever you can find on YouTube. Look for “Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk” – he was Tony nominated for the choreo & his performances in this musical. (The MDA telethon performance above is an excerpt – he did these for several years on the telethon.)
I like this one, because you can watch modern African-American tap alongside modern-traditional Irish dance and you can see that these are related, but distinct, art forms. They share a common ancestor, but they’re also so different. Right around 4 minutes, Colin Dunne (the man in the cover image below) and Savion Glover start dancing together, trading off, and it’s AMAZING.
Sidenote, if anyone ever hears of a revival of “Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk,” please tell me, I want to see it liiiiiiive.
Let’s finish off with Glover’s special guest performance at the Stockholm International Tap Dance Festival last year: