Tap Legacy

Every member of our community should be rightfully recognized and credited for their contribution, be it small or large, in the areas of production, performance, education, documentation, and preservation.”

In the tap dance world there is an amazing variety of people who have stewarded our craft through the past century. Not only have performers carried, showcased, and contributed to the techniques we enjoy today, but producers, directors, educators, documentarians, and preservationists have all played a role. Each has had a hand in how our craft has been presented, passed on, evolved, and eventually remembered and promoted around the world.

In addition to names like Gregory Hines, Fred Astaire, and Jimmy Slyde, there are the Hermes Pans, Sammy Dyers, and Ernie Smiths of the tap dance world. There are numerous cultural trends that make giving credit where credit is due ever more important. The one with the most impact has to do with the way we, as a community, use social media.

Social media sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Wikipedia, present unique opportunities like the consolidation of global information, the sharing of rare documents, and the connecting of our global community. However, the inability to confirm the accuracy of the information posted is a severe set back. For tap dance specifically, our focus on the performers is warranted, but not a complete picture of all those who have contributed to the lifeblood of the craft.

The resilience of oral traditions rests on the memory of all the witnesses, the accuracy and trustworthiness of the oral record, and the ability of the carriers of the tradition to name names, places, and events.

The history of tap dance is full of hard stories we might rather not retell, maybe even people we’d rather not be part of our story. However, if we want our craft to continue to thrive, we should strive for the fullest retelling of our story. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Retold with honesty. To that end, every credit is worthy of being given. Every member of our community is worthy of the recognition due, for the sake of the craft.

We believe that every member of our community should have access to all the information, collected materials, and stories that informs the understanding of our tradition.

In any community it is imperative that every member have access to the material that informs the history of that community. If access is limited, classes emerge. We see this across history as religious, intellectual, and political classes emerge and consolidate power from the rest of the population through the control of information and narrative. In the world of active oral traditions it is normal for a select few members of a community to be tasked with upholding the standard of a particular tradition. They are usually the most experienced and trustworthy, but can also be part of a particular family line or tradition of apprenticeship and specifically trained for the role. Still, the power of these select few should be balanced by the active involvement of the entire community in the tradition, be it a celebration, religious ritual, or other expression of dance, music, or storytelling.

Today the tap dance community is separated by its geography. The lineages of tradition are many and do not always align with regards to approach to the craft. Furthermore, multiple collections of materials – archives of photographs, show programs and posters, audio and moving image recordings, and physical objects – are scattered around the globe, held both privately and by private and public institutions.

Digital platforms like YouTube have done wonders to surface video clips of tap dancers from long ago and spread around the world at the speed of the internet. But access isn’t just about the stuff. Access is about the quality and value of the information. It’s about context. So that what is spread ultimately supports the tradition which in turn supports the community. Learning a single tap dance step from a video is great. Learning the stories that surround that step, who your actually stealing it from, and who was behind the documentation of the clip itself are as important if not more when it comes to the oral tradition. Unfortunately the latter is much more difficult with the platforms we currently have, but we can fix this.

Access is the key. As we develop the Archive of American Vernacular Dance, access is at the heart of our endeavor. We aim to build a platform that is accessible to the entire tap dance community, not just a particular subset. We aim to build a platform that provides access to the material that informs the stories upon which the tradition of tap dancing and American vernacular dances stand. We aim to provide the tools necessary for anyone in our community to learn, understand, and contribute to the body of work that is our collective history.

Access to the stories that make up the history of a community is a matter of social justice. People inside the community should be the primary storytellers, not outside observers. We now have the technology to rectify this situation, which unfortunately has happened often in the world of American Vernacular Dance.

If this resonates with you, we want to here from you here.

If you’re moved to support this endeavor, you can do so here.

The tap dance community today consists of members from many different nations, ethnicities, professions, ages, etc. One of the most challenging things our community has faced over the past years, which actually parallels a global trend, is the setting and agreement of community values, standards, and even common terminology. As an organization that was founded by tap dancers in support of the oral tradition we thought it important to put down a few core values for ourselves and share them. When everything else is pushed aside, these are what remain for us.

We believe that…

1. Every member of our community should have access to all the information, collected materials, and stories that informs the understanding of our tradition’s history.
2. Every member of our community should be rightfully recognized and credited for their contribution, be it small or large, in the areas of production, performance, education, documentation, and preservation.
3. Tap Dance is part of a large family of percussive dance expressions. Any curation that we institute is designed to focus our interest around tap dance and related American vernacular dances, and not to exclude the fundamental relationship between all human expressions of percussive dance.

When dealing with values, there is always the issue of perfection. Have we achieved these values? Of course not. If we had, our organization wouldn’t need to exist. These values are what we are working towards. They are what guide us as we continue to explore ways of supporting the oral tradition in a cultural landscape that is continually changing.

Over the next few weeks we’ll do a deeper dive into each one of these core values, so you can see why we believe them to be so important to our community. In the meantime, now you can see a little more about what guides us.

In 1989 the federal government of the United States signed a bill recognizing May 25, 1989 as National Tap Dance Day. The date was chosen on account of it being Bill “Bojangles” Robinson’s birthday. Since then celebrations for National Tap Dance Day have spread across the country and internationally. While many tap dancers know about the day and why we celebrate very few know how the date came to be.

A few years ago we put together this resource to share the story of the establishment of what is now simply Tap Dance Day. We hope you enjoy this unique resource!