| Tap
dancing started with the Negro slaves who would beat out rhythms
and dance on river boats. Plantation owners called these dancers
Levee Dancers thru out the south, these levee dancers would wear
shoes as well as not. Levee dancers would find fame with the minstrel
shows around 1830 and would hire them to perform to the Negro
ditties, however, most of these Negro performers were actually
white men who would wear face paint, (known as "Blackface
") and perform these dances. The Black
Bottom has been credited to contributing to the "Modern
Tap Dance Musical Phrasing," with it's "Off Beat"
rhythms.
Tap dance and Clog
are very similar, mainly because Tap has deep roots into
Clog dance. The most difficult of the Irish clogs are the Irish
Jigs , Hornpipes and reels. In some of these the feet can
tap the floor more than seventy times in fifteen seconds. In Clog
dancing, no thought is given to facial, line expressions and the
arms are kept motionless. The Clog dance almost came to oblivion
because of the mixing of the Clog and Shuffle dances of the African-Americans
today known as Tap by the end of the 19th century. 1900 to 1920
were the years modern tap had evolved.
In 1866 the Black Crook, considered to be the
first musical, which featured, Burlesque, Minstrel and Clog dancers
who danced very stiffly and gave rise to the term Pedestal dancer.
In 1902, Ned
Wayburn who created a theater play called "Minstrel Misses
" coined the term "Tap and Step dance" in this
musical play. This was the first time these names had been used
professionally. The misses used light clogs with split wooden
soles because aluminum heel and toes taps did not appear till
a decade later.
The Pedestal dancer would climb upon a marbled
or gilded pedestal (24 inch base) and basically clog or
tap out a routine while posing as motionless as a statue. Henry
E. Dixey who used to whitewash himself, was one such dancer
that was known as a pedestal dancer, he would be presented to
the stage as a statue on a pedestal in the likes of Apollo
or Discobulos and when the curtains parted he would start
dancing on the pedestal in a statue like motion.
The Lancashire Clog, which is a more complicated
dance than that of the levee dancers, made some contributions
to Tap as well. Especially when George H. Primrose (Cotton
Coons Minstrel Company) danced the clog without the wooden
soles and invented the Soft-Shoe routine. Barney Williams was
the first professional clog dancer to come to the U.S. in 1840.
The first professional dancers (troupe) in the U.S. were
the Irish Clog dancers (traced to pre-Christian Ireland.)
These dancers that followed were called "Song and Dance Men"
in the Minstrel-Vaudeville shows. Clog contests in the 19th century
would have the judges sit behind a screen or under the dance floor,
judging the sounds rather than the body movements of the dancers.
This dance also is performed in wooden soled shoes. For several
decades Tap and Clog would flourish successfully.
The Soft Shoe is a form of
tap only done with soft soled shoes without metal taps attached,
first introduced by George Primrose on the Minstrel stage in the
early 1910s. Performers originally wore all kinds of shoes to
perform the Soft Shoe and as time went on the term soft shoe was
applied to many eccentric styles of tap. The characteristics of
the soft shoe however was the humor, wit, and delicate nature
of the tapping performed with a very smooth and leisurely cadence.
Occasionally this is referred to as the Sand Dance.
The Buck
and Wing was adapted to the Minstrel stage from the recreational
clogs and shuffles of the African-American. The Buck and Wing
is said to be a bastard dance, made up of Clogs,
Jigs
, Sand dance etc. The Hornpipe
of England was a elaborate Pantomime
of English sailors, mimicking their duties while patting
the feet to a tune.
Flash Steps consist of acrobatic
combinations with expanded lea and body movements, while tapping
not being essential became very popular during the teens and twenties.
These Flash steps were more a visually stunning form of tap dance
and the two main steps called "over the top" and "through
the trenches" are credited to Toots Davis in 1913's Darktown
Follies. Flash steps were usually done at the end of the routines
as they could wear you out.
For the Shim Sham or Shim-Sham Shimmy (See Shim-Sham
).
The Shout (or Ring-Shout)
was a union of dance and song. This gave birth to what was called
"Darkie dialect and rhythms" from "de camp meetin'
hymns" and "work hollers" of the old south.
The fast Step dance, once popular and is the
forerunner to the slower Soft Shoe style of Tap dancing done in
3/4 time. Originally came from Ireland around 400 A.D. and is
often times called the great Granddaddy of Tap dancing. The early
Irish dancers wore hard shoes designed to protect the feet for
the weather in the British Isle. It was here these dancers created
the Jig's they used in step dancing. These dancers would keep
their arms perfectly still and at their sides, ignoring the more
flashier arms movements of other dances. This dance would later
become popular in England.
The Time Step derived from
the older Buck and Wing Style of dance and would prove to become
one of the basic steps to tap dancing as well as Falling off a
log and shuffling off to buffalo and Wings.
Wings:
The more modern Wings started to become a basic stable to tap
dancing around 1900. "Wings" are basically derived from
the much older minstrel variations of the Pigeon
Wing but no real air step. Eventually becoming "air steps"
that have the dancer springing up from one leg off the floor,
and using the correct timing to do a certain amount of taps with
the same foot before landing back down while the other "winging
leg" usually remains motionless. There are variations such
as the pump (winging leg goes up and down), double back,
pendulum, Three-tap wing (one tap on the way up and two on
the way down), Five-tap wings, etc.
Guinness World Book Records:
Roy Castle - January 14, 1973 -- 1,440 Taps Per Minute (24 per
second).
|
Ballrooms
