Tap Dancing America: A Cultural History

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Overview


Here is the vibrant, colorful, high-stepping story of tap--the first comprehensive, fully documented history of a uniquely American art form, exploring all aspects of the intricate musical and social exchange that evolved from Afro-Irish percussive step dances like the jig, gioube, buck-and-wing, and juba to the work of such contemporary tap luminaries as Gregory Hines, Brenda Bufalino, Dianne Walker, and Savion Glover.
In Tap Dancing America, Constance Valis Hill, herself an ...
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Tap Dancing America : A Cultural History

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More About This Book

Overview


Here is the vibrant, colorful, high-stepping story of tap--the first comprehensive, fully documented history of a uniquely American art form, exploring all aspects of the intricate musical and social exchange that evolved from Afro-Irish percussive step dances like the jig, gioube, buck-and-wing, and juba to the work of such contemporary tap luminaries as Gregory Hines, Brenda Bufalino, Dianne Walker, and Savion Glover.
In Tap Dancing America, Constance Valis Hill, herself an accomplished jazz tap dancer, choreographer, and performance scholar, begins with a dramatic account of a buck dance challenge between Bill "Bojangles" Robinson and Harry Swinton at Brooklyn's Bijou Theatre, on March 30, 1900, and proceeds decade by decade through the 20th century to the present day. She vividly describes tap's musical styles and steps--from buck-and-wing and ragtime stepping at the turn of the century; jazz tapping to the rhythms of hot jazz, swing, and bebop in the '20s, '30s and '40s; to hip-hop-inflected hitting and hoofing in heels (high and low) from the 1990s right up to today. Tap was long considered "a man's game," and Hill's is the first history to highlight such outstanding female dancers as Ada Overton Walker, Kitty O'Neill, and Alice Whitman, at the turn of the 20th century, as well as the pioneering women composers of the tap renaissance, in the 70s and 80s, and the hard-hitting rhythm-tapping women of the millennium such as Chloe Arnold, Ayodele Casel, Michelle Dorrance, and Dormeshia Sumbry Edwards.
Written with all the verve and grace of tap itself, drawing on eye-witness accounts of early performances as well as interviews with today's greatest tappers, and richly illustrated with over ninety images, Tap Dancing America fills a major gap in American dance history and places tap firmly center stage.
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Editorial Reviews

Library Journal
Dancer and choreographer Hill (dance, Hampshire Coll.; Brotherhood in Rhythm: The Jazz Tap Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers) announces in the preface her goal of creating a "twentieth century chronology and cultural history of tap dance in America." After an introductory chapter spanning 1650–1900, she proceeds through the 20th century by decade, closing with a millennium chapter. She discusses the style of many tap dancers, including Bill Robinson and Savion Glover, and includes quotations on their views of tap. Although this is a cultural history, the devastating effects of minstrelsy are only touched on, and some offensive language of the time (e.g., pickaninnies) is used as a kind of historical terminology. VERDICT This handy source for tap history and personalities packs in lots of info, but it is not always presented in a tactful way. For a different take on minstrelsy, try Spike Lee's film Bamboozled. Mark Knowles's Tap Roots will satisfy readers who would like more early history, and Rusty E. Frank's Tap!: The Greatest Tap Dance Stars and Their Stories, 1900–1955 provides first-person perspectives.—Barbara Kundanis, Longmont P.L., CO
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780195390827
  • Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
  • Publication date: 1/22/2010
  • Pages: 464
  • Sales rank: 695,350
  • Product dimensions: 7.30 (w) x 10.00 (h) x 1.30 (d)

Meet the Author

Constance Valis Hill is a jazz tap dancer, choreographer, and highly respected scholar of performance studies whose writings have appeared in Dance Magazine, Village Voice, Dance Research Journal, Studies in Dance History, and Discourses in Dance. She studied tap dance with Charles "Cookie" Cook and various members of the Copasetics; performed as one member of the tap-dancing Doilie Sisters; and directed "Sole Sisters" for the Changing Times Tap Company. Her book, Brotherhood in Rhythm: The Jazz Tap Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers (2000), received the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award. She is a Five College Professor of Dance at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.

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Table of Contents

Foreword by Dianne Walker Preface Chapter 1: Introduction (1650-1900)
Chapter 2: (Turn of the Century) Buck-and-Wing Chapter 3: (Teens) Over-the-Top and In-the-Trenches Chapter 4: (Twenties) Simply Full of Jazz Chapter 5: (Thirties) Swing Time Chapter 6: (Forties) Jumpin' Jive Chapter 7: (Fifties) Beat, Bebop, Birth of the Cool Chapter 8: (Sixties) Tap Happenings Chapter 9: (Seventies) Nostalgia, and All That Tap Chapter 10: (Eighties) Black and Blue Chapter 11: (Nineties) Noise and Funk Chapter 12: (Millennium) Hoofing in Heels Notes Glossary Bibliography

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Customer Reviews

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Sort by: Showing all of 2 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted October 25, 2012

    Love

    I love tap dancing.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted March 14, 2012

    Ghhg

    Love tap

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.
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