What the Eye Hears: A History of Tap Dancing

by Brian Seibert

Overview

The first authoritative history of tap dancing, one of the great art forms--along with jazz and musical comedy--created in America

What the Eye Hears offers an authoritative account of the great American art of tap dancing. Brian Seibert, a dance critic for The New York Times, begins by exploring tap's origins as a hybrid of the jig and clog dancing and dances brought from Africa by slaves. He tracks tap's transfer to the stage through blackface minstrelsy and charts its growth as a cousin to jazz in the vaudeville circuits. Seibert chronicles tap's spread to ubiquity on Broadway and in Hollywood, analyzes its decline after World War II, and celebrates its rediscovery and reinvention by new generations of American and international performers. In the process, we discover how the history of tap dancing is central to any meaningful account of American popular culture.

This is a story with a huge cast of characters, from Master Juba through Bill Robinson and Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and Gene Kelly and Paul Draper to Gregory Hines and Savion Glover. Seibert traces the stylistic development of tap through individual practitioners and illuminates the cultural exchange between blacks and whites, the interplay of imitation and theft, as well as the moving story of African Americans in show business, wielding enormous influence as they grapple with the pain and pride of a complicated legacy. What the Eye Hears teaches us to see and hear the entire history of tap in its every step.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374536510
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	11/22/2016
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	624
Sales rank:	228,220
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Brian Seibert is a dance critic for The New York Times and a contributor to The New Yorker. Born and raised in Los Angeles, he lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter. What the Eye Hears is his first book.

Table of Contents

Opening Act
Part I: First Steps
1. Stealing Steps
2. Original Steps
3. Imitation Dance
4. Dancing Juba for Eels
5. The American Clog
Part II: Everybody's Doing It Now
6. Big Time
7. The Practical Art of Stage Dancing
8. It's Getting Dark on Old Broadway
Interlude: The Color Line
Part III: America's Natural Way of Dancing
9. Rhythm for Sale
10. How to Hoof in Hollywod
11. Before the Fall
Part IV: Out of Step
12. The Break
13. Continuation
Part V: Putting the Shoes Back On
14. Revival
15. Renaissance
16. Lineage
17. Choreography and the Company Model
18. Black and Blue on Broadway
19. Young Again
Part VI: An American Tradition, A Global Art
20. Danse à Claquettes, Steptanz, Sapateado, Tappudansu
21. Where's the Dance?
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

Editorial Reviews

…tap-dancing—like so much of American popular culture—owes its very essence to black people. Like the jazz it evolved alongside, tap blends the European and the African to a near-indissoluble degree, with origins only dimly reconstructable. Brian Seibert's authoritative What the Eye Hears illuminates those beginnings—along with what happened afterward—as well as anyone ever will. His research is as thorough about the 1820s as about last week: Seibert, who writes about dance for The New York Times, has smoked out every clip, sat through every silly old movie, read everything and sorted it all out for the rest of us.

The New York Times Book Review - John McWhorter

…[a] big, smart, wonderfully anecdotal and definitive history of tap dance…[What the Eye Hears] offers passion about its subject, deft evocations of dance action and a narrative mischief suited to tap's trickster mentality…Mr. Seibert's way of explaining tap constitutes nothing less than a social history of our country's deepest folk and pop roots…he calls on a dazzling array of primary and secondary sources; he rolls out a cast of thousands, each with a pocket-size life story (Bill Robinson, a.k.a. Bojangles; Shirley Temple; the Nicholas Brothers; Fred Astaire; Peg Leg Bates; John Bubbles; Steve Condos). And he layers their stories—black dancers on white on black—so deftly that a reader turning the pages gets a visceral sense of the art's constant overlap…Decorating each phase of this tap epic are the terrific moments in which the art's rhythmical virtuosity seems to pass into Mr. Seibert's own prose.

The New York Times - Elizabeth Kendall

★ 09/14/2015
New York Times dance critic Seibert’s first book is easily twice the size of most other debuts, and it contains thrice the content. The word comprehensive comes to mind, but is insufficient to properly describe the depth of detail Seibert achieves. Drawing on primary sources of every kind, from written accounts by slave traders in the early 17th century to personal interviews conducted in the 21st, the author breaks down not merely the origins art of tap dancing itself, but the racial and gender constructs that forced the industry—and its performers—to develop in the ways they did, while acknowledging his own white male privilege. Seibert profiles legends such as Fred Astaire and Bill Robinson alongside dancers who have become largely forgotten outside of dance circles, such as the Nicholas brothers, and modern masters including Savion Glover. Seibert has a tendency to jump about in time, but that doesn’t mar this fascinating, sharply written cultural analysis. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

"His big, smart, wonderfully anecdoctal and definitive history of tap dance...offers passion about its subject, deft evocations of dance action and a narrative mischief suited to tap's trickster mentality. . . Mr. Seibert's way of explaining tap constitutes nothing less than a social history of our country's deepest folk and pop roots. . . He rolls out a cast of thousands. . . and he layers their stories—black dancers on white on black—so deftly that a reader turning the pages gets a visceral sense of the art's constant overlap. . . Decorating each phase of this tap epic are terrific moments in which the art's rhythmical virtuosity seems to pass into Mr. Seibert's own prose. . . Nothing in this rich volume goes awry." —Elizabeth Kendall, The New York Times

"There have been some valuable works [about tap dancing] but never a volume that did the real heavy lifting: critical, analytical, historical, comprehensive. . . That book has now been published. . . [Seibert] himself is an artist — he writes beautiful prose and is a crackerjack storyteller. . . It's hard to know which of Seibert's dance portraits to highlight because there are so many wonderful ones." —Joan Acocella, The New Yorker

"Brian Seibert's authoritative What the Eye Hears illuminates those beginnings [of tap dance] — along with what happened afterward — as well as anyone ever will. His research is as thorough about the 1820s as about last week. Seibert . . . has smoked out every clip, sat through every silly old movie, read everything and sorted it all out for the rest of us . . . [he] does a sterling job of telling the story of where tap has been, and why it matters." —John McWhorter, New York Times Book Review

"Seibert cares, first and foremost, about the dance as dance. He’s done a marvelous job tracking that dance, too, digging deep into primary sources to help you see, and hear, dozens of tappers from the nineteenth century to the present . . . Seibert generously invites both the famous and nearly forgotten into his pages, making a case for why each of them matters as an artist. . . This is masterful storytelling." —Megan Pugh, The New Republic

"A comprehensive and engaging study and celebration of this lively art. . .What the Eye Hears is much more than a roll-call of tap stars. Mr. Seibert also stages a challenge-dance with the big themes entwined in tap’s history. . . His critical footwork dazzles." —Tom Nolan, The Wall Street Journal

"Seibert, a dance critic for the New York Times, documents every stage and hoofer with passion, intelligence, and detail." —Christine Smallwood, Harper's Magazine

"Mr. Seibert's writing is so engaging, transporting the reader back in time. . . You would need a heart of stone for his enthusiasms not to rub off of you." —The Economist

"Oh, but this book is fun. Brian Seibert’s meticulously researched, breezily written history of tap dance, “What the Eye Hears,” shuffles and slides and Shim Shams across the page irresistibly; when you close its pages, you still hear tapping feet." —Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times

"Comprehensive, nuanced, and enlightening" —Jane Ciabattari, bbc.com

"A glorious account of one of the most popular forms of dance . . . Anyone interested in dance, popular culture, and African American history will enjoy this comprehensive work.” —Carolyn Mulac, Booklist

“The word comprehensive comes to mind, but is insufficient to properly describe the depth of detail Seibert achieves . . . Fascinating, sharply written cultural analysis.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“An intelligent, thoughtful assessment worth dipping into by anyone interested in American culture.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Tap is America’s great contribution to dance, and Brian Seibert’s book gives us—at last!—a full-scale (and lively) history of its roots, its development, and its glorious achievements. An essential book!” —Robert Gottlieb, dance critic for The New York Observer and editor of Reading Dance

“Brian Seibert’s What the Eye Hears not only tells you all you wanted to know about tap dancing; it tells you what you never realized you needed to know. Drawing on his massive research, Seibert follows the art through its roots, its vaudeville heyday, its forays onto Broadway and into Hollywood, its decline, its renaissance, and its dissemination beyond American shores. And he recounts all this in an easygoing style, providing vibrant descriptions of the dancing itself and illuminating commentary by those masters who could make a floor sing.” —Deborah Jowitt, author of Jerome Robbins: His Life, His Theater, His Dance and Time and the Dancing Image

“In the best possible sense, Seibert is in love with his subject. He almost can’t get enough of it, digging deeply into the lore as well as the history of tap’s emergence as an original American art form. His observations are entertaining and at times—since minorities have been preponderant from the start—profoundly moving. When it comes to the greats—Astaire, Bojangles, Savion—Seibert’s detailed descriptive insights seem to take us truly inside their artistry.” —Nancy Reynolds, Director of Research, The George Balanchine Foundation

From the Publisher

10/01/2015
This voluminous compendium will tell you more than you could have ever imagined there was to know about the quintessential American dance form—tap. New York Times dance critic and New Yorker contributor Seibert takes readers back to the ships that once brought slaves to America, and from there traces the historical development of American dance forms that ultimately led to tap, such as jigs, breakdowns, minstrelsy, and clog. The author introduces us to the precursors of Fred and Ginger, Mickey and Judy, Eleanor Powell and Gene Kelly, to mention just a few of the better-known hoofers. Of special interest are the accounts of numerous talented but less-well-known African American performers who made major contributions to tap (e.g., Clayton Bates, Joni LeGon, Bill "Bo Jangles" Robinson). Another plus is the extensive social history that serves as a backdrop to all the terpsichorean lore. Also covered is the spread of tap from America to such far-flung locales as Japan and Estonia. VERDICT This encyclopedic tome written with erudition, humor, and touches of snark will not teach you how to tap but will help you understand the origin, development, and appeal of the dance. Highly recommended wherever interest warrants. [See Prepub Alert, 5/11/15.]—Edward B. Cone, New York

Library Journal

2015-09-01
New York Times dance critic Seibert debuts with an exhaustive account of tap, from its roots in African dance to its multicultural apotheosis. In early chapters, the author delves into the transfer of rhythm from drums, forbidden as possible instruments of rebellious slave communications, to slapping feet, making the point that sound and rhythm were the essence of this African-American art form. Casual readers may weary in the long introductory section about minstrelsy, but it's here that Seibert cogently lays out his central themes of assimilation and appropriation, asking as he surveys pioneers like Master Juba how much they catered to white folks, how much instructed them. As tap moved onto Broadway and into the movies, the vexed question for artists was how much pandering was required to gain commercial acceptance. The author appreciates the contributions made by Irish traditions and white innovators like Fred Astaire, who brought black tap with his distinctive adaptations to a mainstream audience. But he reminds us of the many brilliant tappers like the Nicholas Brothers and John Bubbles, sidelined into specialty numbers while commendable but less-extraordinary talents like Eleanor Powell and Ann Miller became stars. The African-American tradition, kept alive at places like the Hoofers' Club in Harlem and through the devoted efforts of white women like Brenda Bufalino, finally got its due in the tap revival of the 1990s, when youthful veteran Gregory Hines made the old ways new again. In 1995, Savion Glover took tap in a whole new direction with the angry, rap-inflected Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk. The text comes close to turning into a parade of names, but Seibert's point of view and analytic skills are evident throughout. He acknowledges Glover's genius, for example, while taking to task his purist posturing and celebrating tap as a typically multicultural American art form, born from black culture but amended and extended by all who loved it. Awfully long for all but the most committed tap fanatics, but an intelligent, thoughtful assessment worth dipping into by anyone interested in American culture.

Kirkus Reviews