Untitled

[trigona-necrophaga]

Gideon the Ninth naming system notes appreciation post

[curlsandstems]

They DID that!!!

[ariestess]

It took me about 15 seconds in to realize what was happening in this vid, but the second I did, I legit came. This is… I got chills and got so much validation for my theories about tap and pretty much any genre of music here…

[telegantmess]

Tap is probably one of the dance styles that gets the least amount of credit four how badass it is

[royalnugget42]

Holy hell-

[enigmatic-mystery-777]

Sorry I don’t get it?

[royalnugget42]

They’re tap dancing, a kind of dancing typically associated with being old-fashioned and kind of silly. Personally, even tap dancing to old music is awesome in my eyes, but this is on a totally new and exciting level

[amuseoffyre]

The thing about tap is that it’s so often seen as a fancy, old-fashioned dainty dance that only posh (and generally white) people do in tuxedos but it didn’t used to be the case.

Way back in the early days, it was where black performers in Vaudeville were legendary for it in Jazz and Jive routines. At about 1:37, this is where the Nicholas brothers go off.

It’s such an expressive and joyful kind of dance and matches so well with hip hop beats and rhythm, which is why the modern reworking of it is so awesome.

[bogleech]

Im sure a lot of people also watch the op video and they assume that “clap” sound is part of the music just because a LOT of modern music samples that sound and in some music it is just the sound of hands clapping, but no that is a sound being made by all their shoes at once.

[meinenaffenhosen]

one of my favorite syncopated ladies routines

[madgastronomer]

Has the world forgotten Gregory Hines?

[elljayvee]

I am gritting my teeth at the mere suggestion that tap is primarily associated with dainty white people.

Tap is a distinctive American art form that comes from a blending of African dance traditions with Irish dance traditions. It was developed by Black and white dancers and came up alongside and deeply entwined with jazz.

Certainly the tap that ends up in musical theater often seems old-fashioned and white but that’s a musical theater issue, not a tap issue. That is only one small part of tap, which continues to have a strong African-American tradition.

The Nicholas Brothers, above, are in a clip from the film Stormy Weather, which has an almost entirely African-American cast. Some of the other scenes in the film include Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, one of the greatest tap artists of all time. He was very well-known generally and was in quite a few Shirley Temple movies in his day. (Shirley Temple, herself, was a tap dancer – which I’ll be real is probably contributing to people thinking it’s old-fashioned and white, because it’s easy to forget the Black man dancing alongside her, I guess.)

Here’s Bill Robinson with Cab Calloway in Stormy Weather – he’s performing a variation of his famous “stair dance” in parts of this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY3fbvBRiaM

Here’s probably the most widely famous version of the “stair dance”, from The Little Colonel:

There’ve been a lot of white tap dancers through the years – see, for example, everyone’s favorite clip of two men torturing a speech therapist:

… but a lot of its most famous practitioners have been Black and it’s weird to me that people don’t know that.

Have a scene from Tap (1989).

[elljayvee]

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 this from 2014-ish:

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:

[veralisong]

I haven't a chance to look at all the videos yet but this is a really interesting little window into an area I don't know anything about so I want to share the information out, not just bookmark it for myself later.

[ravioliet]

god's weakest soldier is scrolling tumblr instead of being productive or participating in any of their hobbies

[ravioliet]

to everyone in the notes saying this is mean or rude or a callout, this post was autobiographical. we're in this together. take my paw

[veralisong]

Well that was a fun surprise. Sorry to the tumblr blogs my snek at.

[lady-moriel]

CAS color palette challenge | Rules Thank you @keiloo for tagging! 💜

[veralisong]

Absolutely beautiful sim.

[dozydawn]

[two-goblins-in-a-trench-coat]

a CRITTER? Carrying a BERRY?? Across a BRAMBLE VINE?????

[wheel-of-fish]

Friendly reminder that bookshop.org has free shipping this weekend and they give more than 80% of their profit margins to 1,900+ independent bookstores! Also, they have great curated rec lists.

[wheel-of-fish]

If you need ideas, I have several hyper-specific rec lists! They're not affiliate links or anything; I'm just Like This.

Books I'm Always Yelling at People to Read

Solitary Woman in a Creepy House

We're Sacrificing a Girl to the Unknown for the Sake of the Village

Books That WIll Make You Want to Be a Scribe or a Scholar or an Archivist or Something idk

There's a Ghost Living Here and We're Not Sure What to Do About It

Fantasy Where There's Romance but I Wouldn't Call It a Romantasy

Being a Writer Is Rough Sometimes

I Just Think Birds Are Neat

Incredible Non-Fiction & Memoirs

Oh God It's So Cold. Why Do We Live Here

Books That Make Good Gifts

Found Family

Cozy Sci-Fi/Fantasy

[gothiccharmschool]

Shameless self promotion time: hey you can buy Gothic Charm School: An Essential Guide for Goths and Those Who Love Them on bookshop.org!

[sparrowlucero]

Gallivanting Gargoyles

each of these is available on my kofi as an adoptable

[veralisong]

These are great, if you can think of anything to do with one please go adopt one. I want to see them in use ♥️

[wormzone]

weird ps1 game i found

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

You have to keep watching

[naamahdarling]

This is INCREDIBLE.

[beardedmrbean]

[veralisong]

I thought Tumblr would like this photo my mum sent me from her trip to India. She's been there a week and she's extremely excited about all the toads.

Also, I love his face. He looks thoughtful and a little judgey.

[lilaeleaf]

Some poor suffering gobs!!

[veralisong]

Two books down in the Chronicles of Redwinter series and I do so love it.

There were moments of frustration where I felt like Raine should be able to figure out what was happening and she didn't but then she's a rose thistle addled 18 year old so all things considered she could be slower on the uptake.

I need to get my hands on the next book immediately. Then I expect I'll have that hollow feeling of longing when I finish the series and need something else to suck me into a beautifully crafted fantasy world.

[cortoony-art]

[riseofthecommonwoodpile]

i like that tumblr suggested this to me, like, you’ll love this isabelle. you’ll love these jiggling cubes. and for once, tumblr was right. i do love them.

[sanjishole]

ok so this isnt one of my monster boys, but this is mr wizard big naturals. hes just a townie i made but i love him dearly

[veralisong]

This is probably going to be the best thing I see all day. I want Mr Wizard Big Naturals running around my world.

[freyholland]

the fact that M3GAN 2.0 is flopping hard is SO sad bc it’s due so much in part to people simply not understanding? Not caring? That M3GAN in the original film was NOT your typical slasher villain. People kept comparing her to characters like Chucky, but if you paid even the tiniest bit of attention to the first movie beyond “creepy toy kills people”, it basically slaps you in the face with the fact that M3GAN was not cartoonishly evil. M3GAN was a tragic figure created by a woman who saw her not as a sentient being, but as a tool. She was given the impossible task of comforting, teaching and essentially raising a child when she was literally just born herself. She was tasked with the insanely vague objective of “protecting” that girl, while having no real understanding of death or morality or anything in the world beyond what she could read online.

Saying “they ruined her as a villain!!” shows a fundamental misunderstanding of her character as a whole. And that’s to make no mention of the fact that a HUGE theme throughout the first film was an oddball and damaged family trying to figure out how to love each other! To emphasize that and then go “except M3GAN though, she’s irredeemable” (especially when some of her biggest flaws are ones she inherited from her human creator!) would only undermine that message.

She is an extremely damaged child, just like Cady, and she’s a part of the family, too.

When I first learned of it, I wasn’t excited at all by the thought of a M3GAN sequel. It felt like it could only be a boring rehash of the first movie. My mind changed when I saw the trailer for 2.0 - and then when I saw the actual film, I was super impressed by their willingness to experiment and try something new. Was it ridiculous? Of course! The first movie was, too. But to see people reject it so hard because it tried something new (and logically followed M3GAN’s character arc to the places implied by the first film) is sad to me.

And it sounds like the creators of the movie loved M3GAN so much, they truly believed in her. Which just makes it all the sadder :/

[veralisong]

This is such a good take.

I was underwhelmed by the original and, like OP, originally very disinterested in the idea of a sequel but I actually wildly enjoyed the film. It was fun, and the character development of M3gan was so much more interesting to see than just another slasher.

[everythingfox]

Fear me

(via)

[moniquill]

I’d like to point out that this kitten is trying to entice the dog into wrestling. As it would with other kittens/cats. That feinting and then leaping back sideways? That’s an invitation to tackle. Other kittens would understand this body language.

This dog does not understand which is probably for the best, because this kitten clearly does not understand the concept of ‘weight class’

[veralisong]

I used to have a samoyed (dog in the video) and she didn't have a concept of 'weight class' either so it's very fortuitous for the kitten that the dog doesn't understand what it's being asked to do.