The Art of Tap Dancing

Perhaps because it bears no relation to the courtdances of any aristocracy, tap dancing has never been considered a high artform. It’s said that when percussion instruments were forbidden to Africanslaves in America,they remembered the foot dancing of the Irish crewmen on the ships that hadbrought them here and began to communicate with their feet. Fred Astaire“classed up” the slave folk dance by combining it with ballet and ballroommoves. Tap is fundamentally an aural art like drumming, rooted in the heartbeatand lungs. It has provided a powerful and witty means to celebrate individualand communal identity and freedom in the face of the direst oppression for bothits African and Irish progenitors.

“A step is a word,” says Amy Brinkman-Sustache,artistic director of Danceworks on Tap (DOT). “You put steps together to make asentence. Questions are raised and answered through rhythm. It’s like listeningto a conversation.”

Then there is the giddy pleasure that tap dancinginvariably brings to audiences for reasons beyond words. Brinkman-Sustachefounded DOT in 2000 to “sustain tap as a recognized art form.” Group membersteach, choreograph, perform in outreach programs and create concerts thatexplore the history and currency of the form. DOT’s “Knock on Wood” concert will conclude Danceworks’ 2010 DanceLABseries.

The scope of the concert is wide. The Rince NiaAcademy of Irish Dance and Culture returns for the second year; its artisticdirector, Sean Beglan, a former lead with Riverdance, will perform a solo Irish dance. The Irish dancersand the Danceworks tap company will then perform a conversation between thestyles. A similar work last year emphasized conflict; here, the focus is oncreating a unified work.

There’s also a soft-shoe dance on sand. LamontJohnson, a “hoofer” in his mid-50s, will improvise a traditional tap solo, andseasoned 12-year-old tapper Gabi Sustache will freestyle a contemporaryapproach. Sole 2 Soul, a hip-hop andtap collaboration set to a Jamaican chant, will feature dancers from Pius XIHigh School.

Brinkman-Sustache choreographed Driven, a unison work for the eight company dancers set to music byWa Dai Ko Matsuri Za performed on Japanese wood drums. Rhythms and tempos shiftdrastically and the dancers must follow. “It’s about accepting change as youstay with someone or follow a vision that motivates you,” she explains.

“Knock onWood” will be performed 7:30 p.m. Aug. 13-14 and 4 p.m. Aug. 15 at DanceworksStudio Theatre.