3 Things I learned At Tap City – #1
This post is the first in a 3-part series where Hillary-Marie Michael shares insights she gained while attending Tap City a few weeks back. Enjoy!
Update: View post #2 here.
This year I attended American Tap Dance Foundation’s Tap City 2008. The week was great – full of rehearsals, classes and shows. My time spent at Tap City brought me to three important realizations.
The number one concept that came to me, was the importance of history. You can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been. Tap has been around forever, and people are so concerned with the rhythms of the current times that they’re neglecting the rhythms of the past.
The best way to learn about tap’s history, is to spend time with history itself.
My time was well occupied by hanging out with Tap Masters Harold “Stumpy” Cromer and Ernest “Brownie” Brown. Both were inducted into the International Tap Dance Hall Of Fame, along with Dr. Jimmy Slyde and Mable Lee.
Maurice Chestnut said in a past Dance Spirit issue, that if you want to learn about tap, talk to someone over the age of 30, he couldn’t have said it better. These guys are great, they have stories to tell that you can’t read in books or see on youtube. I learn so many valuable lessons from being in that atmosphere.
When you get a chance, click here to visit the International Tap Association’s “Who’s Who In Tap” page and get some research done!
April 7th, 2009 at 2:06 am
[...] In this post, associate blogger Hillary-Marie Michael shares another lesson she learned at this year’s New York City Tap Festival! The other 2 posts in this series are about style and tap history. [...]