American Tap Dance History
The art of tap dance originated in the United States more than 300 years ago. Like jazz music, tap dance remains a uniquely American form of art. From its origins in the folk dances of Africa and the British Isles to Broadway productions integrating jazz and hip-hop rhythms, tap dance has been part of American popular culture for more than a century.
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Origins
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Tap dancing has roots in both traditional Irish and English jigs, or clog dances, and African religious dances known as gioube. According to Rhapsody in Taps on the Performing Arts Online website, African-American slaves combined these two styles over the course of the 18th and early 19th centuries. The first widely known tap performer was William Henry Lane, also known as Master Juba, who popularized the dance onstage circa 1845. The dancers wore Irish-style wooden clogs until 1910, when metal tap shoes were invented.
On Stage
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With the rise of vaudeville theater in the 1920s, tap dance began to evolve into a more popular and commercial form of entertainment. According to an article by scholar Constance Valis Hill, the advent of metal-bottomed tap shoes and the integration of jazz rhythms were crucial to the style's popularity in vaudeville and Broadway musicals. Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and John Bubbles are considered the first major tap dance stars.
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In Film
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Starting in the 1930s and 1940s, Hollywood began to include tap routines in various musical films. The film industry at the time was heavily segregated, resulting in different substyles marketed to different demographics. For example, Robinson, Bubbles and the Nicholas Brothers, all African-American performers, performed in an improvisational and percussive jazz style, whereas the white musical theater stars Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire utilized ballroom and ballet techniques typical of Broadway. Films from this period featuring tap include "Dixiana," "Swing Time" and "Stormy Weather."
Decline and Re-emergence
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Tap suffered a decline in popular culture throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The 1980s, however, saw the return of tap dancing to cinema. Tap dancing was featured in films such as "White Knights," "The Cotton Club" and "Tap." Additionally, the 1980s saw the emergence of young tap dance prodigy Savion Glover, who first performed on Broadway as a 9-year-old in "The Tap Dance Kid." Glover introduced hip-hop rhythms to tap in the 1990s with his influential and popular Broadway production "Bring In Da Noise, Bring In Da Funk."
Today
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Tap dancing is still a widely taught form of dance and is utilized in Broadway numbers to this day.The art has continued its foray into the hip-hop culture that Glover began in the 1990s. "Stepping" is a style of percussive dance produced by dancers clapping their hands together and against their limbs, chests, hips and stomachs. While stepping eschews traditional tap shoes, its complicated polyrhythms continue the tradition of American percussive dance in the modern era.
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References
Resources
- Photo Credit tip tap scalzo image by goccedicolore.it from Fotolia.com
