Window on the Work: chiBAM!

chiBAM!

The Chicago Human Rhythm Project

is a publication of Kalamazoo RESA’s Education for the Arts, Aesthetic Education Program

STRATEGIES f or using the Window on the Work

Editor

Nick Mahmat

Window Narrator Nancy Husk

Research Nancy Husk Deb Norton

Contributors

Chicago Human Rhythm Project Hilary Anthony Nancy Husk Angie Melvin Tara Sytsma Michele VanderBeek Mary Whalen

Design Nick Mahmat

Purpose

The purpose of the Window on the Work is to provide educators and teaching artists with contextual information pertaining to the focus works presented by the Education for the Arts Aesthetic Education Program. This information can fuel the educational process between educators and teaching artists in developing lesson plans and can offer additional pathways (windows) into the repertory and possible connections to existing school curriculum.

In the planning process, use the Window on the Work: • • •

Education for the Arts Director

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Director’s Secretary

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Bryan Zocher Kris DeRyder

Coordinator

To brainstorm themes for study development As a reference tool as questions and interests develop in the planning session To elaborate and expand the instructional focus that has developed out of the planning process To learn more about the work of art To consider possible responses to the question pages as the Window is read To discover connections to other work by the same artists and to other works in the same genre

Deb Strickland

Aesthetic Education Program Coordinator Nick Mahmat

Alternative & Special Education Arts Initiative Program Coordinator Angie Melvin Comments or questions about this publication may be directed to Nick Mahmat, Aesthetic Education Program Coordinator at 488-6267 or nmahmat@kresa.org

During the unit of study, use the Window on the Work: • •

To expand on a lesson idea As a reference to respond to students’ questions

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To keep the discussion about the work alive in the classroom For source material such as artist quotes or background information that may be utilized when incorporating contextual information experientially into a workshop.

To discover additional connections

After the unit of study, use the Window on the Work: • • • •

To continue discussion about the work To compare to other works of art the class may study in the future To expand curriculum study in the classroom on a particular culture, period in history, etc.

As a jumping-off point to make connections with other classroom activities, personal connections, and courses of study

CONTENTS 03-06 The Work

What pieces will be included in the concert in Kalamazoo.? Discover some of the dances and music that will make up the concert.

What do you notice about pieces upon viewing video highlights of the dance?

How do the musicians and dancers work together?

07-10 The Artists

11-17 The Craft

How do the artists approach their work? What guided their choices in choreography and music making?

18-24 The Origins

What are the origins of tap and percussive dance? What are the origins of jazz music?

Who are the artists involved in the chiBAM! concert. Meet the artists responsible for the choreography and those performing this exciting concert!

23 WINDOW NARRATOR, NANCY HUSK, is retired from teaching general and choral music in Gull Lake Community Schools. In that role she served as vocal director for three Gull Lake school-community musicals. From 2001 – 2009 she coordinated Aesthetic Education at Ryan Intermediate School.

During several of her years at Ryan all classrooms within the school were participating in the Aesthetic Education Program. Nancy is also a pianist who has performed chamber music and accompanied instrumentalists and choirs in Southwest Michigan. She has a Bachelors of Music Education from Indiana University and an M.A. from WMU.

Nancy Husk 2

The Work

The Work

The following section contains information on the Chicago Human Rhythm Project’s April concert in Kalamazoo. Please consider the following questions as you view and read about the work. They may also serve as helpful discussion questions with students during workshops or after viewing the performance.

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What do you notice upon viewing video highlights of the pieces?

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How would you describe the dancers movements?

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How are the dancers using their bodies?

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What characteristics stand out as different from other dance concerts you have seen?

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What do you notice about the music in the concert?

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How might you describe the music to someone who could not hear it in a way that would give them an accurate sense of what is there to be heard?

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What aspects of this music stand out as defining hallmarks of this particular dance and music work of art?

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How do the dancers and musicians work together?

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How would you describe their relationship and roles within the ensemble?

It is easy when watching the wellexecuted, finished performance of the dancers and musicians of chiBAM! to forget that it required the coming together of several additional individuals’ efforts.

Below is a helpful list of some of those common (though lesser visible) roles and responsibilities needed to create the final work audiences see on stage.

Composer: writes the original melody, harmony, and rhythms.

Arranger: rewrites the composition for the needs of the performance (in this case, for piano trio) and with tempos (speeds) and number of sections to meet the dancers’ needs.

Transcriber: notates the arranger’s work including writing out “improvised” solos so that they are consistent for the dancers.

Choreographer: plans the dance movements, sometimes to match the music, sometimes for the arranger or transcriber to match.

Ensemble: the entire group of musicians or dancers.

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BAM!

is now in its 4th year of performing the lecture demonstration, “We All Got Rhythm.” This repertory company of the Chicago Human Rhythm Project showcases the best in tap and percussive dance and teaches that rhythm is an innate form of human expression that can be found in every culture throughout the world. They are accompanied by The Greg Spero Trio, a jazz piano trio.

Among the pieces we’ll see and hear . . .

Suite Jazz (1996-2007)

This blend of Waltz, Latin and Swingtime rhythms and motion is a medley of beautiful melodies immediately recognizable to audiences which are danced to brilliant arrangements.

Watch for unison dancing broken up by paired or solo improvisation.

What variations (changes from the unison format) keep your attention?

Length of Piece: 12:00 #1(2004) Music: “I Feel Pretty” Composer: Leonard Bernstein Arrangement: Jeremy Kahn Choreography: Lane Alexander Dancers: Lane Alexander, Tristan Bruns, Kristi Burris, Zada Cheeks, Heather Brown #2 (2002) Music: “Black Orpheus” Composer: Luis Bonfa Arrangement: Jeremy Kahn Choreography: Lane Alexander #3 (1996) Music: “Night and Day” Composer: Cole Porter Arrangement: Oscar Peterson Transcription: Jeremy Kahn Choreography: Lane Alexander Dancers: Lane Alexander, Tristan Bruns, Kristi Burris, Zada Cheeks #4 (2007) Music: “Autumn Leaves” Composer: Joseph Kosma Arrangement: Scott Hamilton Transcription: Jeremy Kahn Choreography: Lane Alexander and Jessica Chapuis Dancers: Ensemble

How Insensitive (2007)

This bossa nova jazz standard composed by Antônio Carlos Jobim, loosely based on Frédéric Chopin's Prelude No.4, was featured as background to The Black Eyed Peas song "Sexy." An instrumental version of the song, performed by Jobim, was featured in the David Lynch movie Lost Highway.

Choreography: Lane Alexander Dancers: Company

Three Little Words (2009)

Choreographed by none other than Chicago’s own Emmy and Tony award winner Ted Louis Levy, Three Little Words is the picture of grace and elegance.

Taking the audience on a journey through natural flow of rhythm and movement, this work is bound to become a standout in tap dance history. The creation of this dance was supported in part by a generous grant by the Sara Lee Foundation.

Length of Piece: 3:45 Composer: Harry Ruby Arrangement: Nat “King” Cole Transcription: Vijay Tellis-Nayak Choreography: Ted Louis Levy Dancers: Company Ted Louis Levy’s professional training began in Chicago with Mr. Finis Henderson II, Master Tap Dancer and former manager of Sammy Davis, Jr. Mr. Levy made his Broadway debut in the smash hit Black & Blue. His choreographic collaboration with George C. Wolfe and Gregory Hines for Jelly’s Last Jam resulted in a Tony nomination and a Drama Desk nomination and the 1993 Outer Critics Circle Award.

Mr. Levy received an Emmy Award for his television debut in the PBS Special Precious Memories, and made his film debut in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. He received the Helen Hayes Award as The Mikado in The Ford Theater’s production of The Hot Mikado, and most recently performed in Sammy, a production based on the musical life of Sammy Davis, Jr.

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Favorite Things (2008)

The WOrk

Full of movement accentuated by rhythmic dynamics, Favorite Things is a new take on an old classic.

Length of Piece: 3:46 Composer: Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein Arrangement: John Coltrane Transcription: Vijay Tellis-Nayak Choreography: Kristi Burris Dancers: Tristan Bruns, Kristi Burris, Zada Cheeks John Coltrane (1926 – 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Playing bebop and hard bop early in his career, Coltrane later was at the forefront of free jazz. He organized at least fifty recording sessions as a leader during his recording career and recorded with trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk.

Prisms (2004)

Prisms combines haunting, classically-structured jazz compositions with complex rhythms and modern/ jazz movements to create a visual as well as aural quilt. Prisms was the original work created for BAM! as a part of the 2004 Chicago Dancemakers’ Forum, with additional funding provided by a 2004 Illinois Arts Council Choreography Fellowship awarded to Mr. Alexander.

Length of Piece: 12:00 Music: Children’s Songs #1, #4, #7, #6 Composer: Chick Corea Transcription: Jeremy Kahn Choreography: Lane Alexander Dancers: Lane Alexander, Tristan Bruns, Kristi Burris, Zada Cheeks, Heather Brown

Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea

John Coltrane

Reflections (2011)

Dancing to classical music is a long-standing subculture of the tap world begun by Paul Draper in the 1930s. Watch for the combination of ballet-like arm movements and precise, beautiful tapping.

Length of Piece: 8:23 Music: French Suite No. 2 in C minor, Menuet I & II (2011); English Suite No. 3 in G minor, Gigue (2011); Prelude and Fugue in A Minor (Liszt Transcription) (2012) Composer: J.S. Bach Choreography: Lane Alexander

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Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz and fusion pianist, keyboardist, and composer. Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards.

He has performed in Kalamazoo at the Gilmore Piano Festival with singer Bobby McFerrin.

AcaBAM! (2004)

The WOrk

AcaBAM! Is a blend of post modern movement, layered, a cappella rhythms and body percussion that culminates in a rousing polyrhythmic finale that brings audiences to their feet.

Watch for changes in level in the dance and the additional sounds the dancers make.

Length of Piece: 10:00 Music: Only the dancers’ feet a cappella (without instruments) Choreography: Lane Alexander Dancers: Lane Alexander, Tristan Bruns, Kristi Burris, Zada Cheeks, Heather Brown

Untitled Choreography: Michelle Dorrance Dancers: Starinah Dixon, Tristan Bruns, Zada Cheeks, Kristi Burris, Heather Brown

Michelle Dorrance is one of the most sought after tap dancers of her generation and "one of the most imaginative tap choreographers working today�

(The New Yorker). Michelle teaches, choreographs and performs throughout the US and abroad, is on faculty at Broadway Dance Center and performs with the New York City cast of Off-Broadway sensation, STOMP.

Michelle Dorrance

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The Artists

The Artists The following section contains information about the artists of chiBAM! You may wish to consider the following questions as you read along.

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Who are the artists whose work is featured in chiBAM!

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What are their individual artistic backgrounds?

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How might the artists’ backgrounds, relationships and experiences influenced the work they are currently doing?

We dance together - we create together - we are moving forward - together!

The Artists

Percussive dance is one of the oldest forms of human expression and tap dance is America's contribution to the evolution of this ancient art. Chicago Human Rhythm Project celebrates the primal impulse to make rhythm and presents programs throughout the year that bring diverse individuals and communities together to share this common experience.

Founded in 1990, the Chicago Human Rhythm Project is America’s oldest institution dedicated to preserving, presenting and teaching tap and percussive dance by bringing together generations of tap dance legends, professionals, students and enthusiasts for classes, performances and workshops. CHRP has four artistic focuses: presenting world-class dance concerts, building a permanent educational forum for tap and percussive dance, sustaining the art form through preservation and documentation and promoting respect and appreciation between various communities by presenting ethnically and aesthetically diverse artists.

BAM!

Chicago Human Rhythm Project's resident performing and teaching ensemble has an extensive repertory including the classics, contemporary jazz tap and experimental rhythmic expression like body drumming. Technical virtuosity and passion are the hallmarks of the company which never fails to engage and surprise the most seasoned theater audiences.

The group was created in 2004 as a choreographic project which grew into a repertory company. BAM! has received

critical accolades, standing ovations and has appeared as a part of Dance Chicago, Jubilate at the Harris Theater, the Spertus Institute and other Chicago venues. BAM! recently represented the United States at the 5th Anniversary Beijing Contemporary Dance Festival. The company currently tours its lecture demonstration "We All Got Rhythm" to K-12 schools through Urban Gateways and has performed more than 120 shows to over 36,000 students in the last three years.

throughout Canada, the United States, and China. He gave the first tap performance ever at the prestigious Spoleto Festival in Italy.

Lane Alexander

Founder & Artistic Director

Lane Alexander, Chicago Human Rhythm Project’s co-founder and director for 20 years, has a performing career spanning over 30 years that includes work on the concert stage, musical theater, television and film. He is one of the foremost experts on Morton Gould’s Tap Dance Concerto which he has performed with the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, the London Philharmonic, the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Illinois Philharmonic, and the Chicago Sinfonietta.

Lane toured nationally with Austin on Tap and appeared in a long running production of “42nd Street” before joining William Orloski's National Tap Dance Company of Canada in 1987 as an ensemble member, eventually performing as soloist, principal and featured guest artist in appearances

Lane co-founded alexander, michaels/Future Movement (am/FM) with Chicago native and noted contemporary dancer/choreographer Kelly Michaels. Together, they created a repertory of tap, modern dances that stretched the boundaries of both and worked for an acknowledgment of American tap as a recognized art form. They co-founded the Chicago Human Rhythm Project in 1990. As a result, Alexander has been a leader in the move to institutionalize American tap as an acknowledged art form.

Lane directed the Emmy nominated 2001 PBS documentary, JUBA! Masters of Tap and Percussive Dance. In 2004, Lane founded a new ensemble, BAM!. In 2009, he received a ten- year appointment to the Beijing Contemporary Music Academy as a Senior Advisor and regularly teaches and performs throughout the world.

Peter Taub, director of performance programs at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, calls Alexander “an ambassador of tap and rhythm.”

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Kristi Burris Artistic Associate A charter member of the ensemble, Kristi is now in her 7th season. She is also the Education Coordinator for the Chicago Human Rhythm Project.

After graduating from the University of Oklahoma with a BS in Health and Sport Sciences, Kristi became a performing member of Especially Tap Chicago and is currently in her 11th season under the direction of Julie Cartier. Most recently Kristi was a tap coach for the national tour of Billy Elliot: The Musical. In 2006, she was chosen to work with Lou Conte on his tribute piece to Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. In addition to performing, Kristi is currently teaching at The Tap Studio in Chicago. In July of 2008, Kristi founded Dance Profusion Project, a project designed to utilize professional dancers from Chicago to increase dance awareness and education throughout Oklahoma. Kristi can be seen in the PBS documentary “Dance in Chicago.”

Heather Brown

Tristan Bruns

In her 4th season with BAM!, Heather has had the opportunity to perform at the International Dance Festival in Beijing, China, and throughout Chicago and the Midwest in such venues as the Harris Theater and the Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago’s Millennium Park. As an individual artist, she has also performed at The Joyce Theatre in NYC with the NYC Tap Festival, and as a guest artist with local dance companies in different venues, including jazz clubs in St. Louis. Heather graduated from Webster University in St. Louis where she received her B.A. in Marketing and a minor in dance.

Tristan Bruns has studied the art form of tap dance with Donna Johnson, Ted Levy, Lane Alexander and Martin "Tre" Dumas and has a BA in Music from Columbia College Chicago. Tristan is an ensemble member of BAM! and has danced with The Cartier Collective and MADD Rhythms. Tristan currently produces his own work through his company, TapMan Productions, LLC, which includes the performance ensemble The Tapmen and the tap and guitar "band" of The Condescending Heroes.

Starinah “Star” Dixon

Zada Cheeks

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Currently in his 6th season with BAM!, Zada began his dance training at an early age and became a member of Especially Tap Chicago, and BAM!, before graduating from West Aurora High School. Since then, Zada has performed with companies such as: River North Chicago Dance Company, Chicago Dance Crash, Civic Ballet of Chicago, and Corpo Dance Company. He has toured nationally and internationally to Venezuela and China.

Starinah Dixon was born and raised in Chicago and started dancing at a very young age. Hers is a dancing family which includes her mom who studied African dance, which she later also studied. She is the younger sister of Bril Barrett who started M.A.D.D. Rhythms where she is one of the original members of the 9-year running tap company. With M.A.D.D. Rhythms, she has performed all over the U.S. including The L.A. Tap Festival, The St. Louis Tap Festival, The Detroit Tap Festival, and Northern Illinois University. In addition to performing, she has taught dance from the age of 16.

She dances with Chicago’s newest hiphop company, Purified, and is a Chicago Human Rhythm Project scholarship student who danced a solo in their 2012 summer concert.

Greg Spero Greg started playing piano and composing at age three and started playing professionally at age fourteen. After high school, Spero studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Music Composition and Jazz Performance. In 2006, Spero met nine-year Miles Davis collaborator and music director Robert Irving III. This chance meeting helped shape Spero's

Spero has performed with acclaimed musicians such as Arturo Sandoval, Corey Wilkes, and Robert Irving III, co-produced tracks with Ski Beatz (Jay Z to Digital Underground founder), Shock G and hip-hop artists such as Murs and Mos Def as well as written music scores for movie and theater productions. In early 2012, Spero was asked to join the Buddy Rich Big Band and most recently toured with them to London and New York where the band headlined for the "Buddy Rich 25th Memorial Concert.” At 27 years

of age, he has been awarded the 2013 Chicago Music Awards’ “Best Jazz Entertainer” and has established himself as one of the most in-demand musicians in the jazz, jazz fusion, instrumental hip-hop and electronic music scene.

While Spero's influences range from Bach to Keith Jarrett to Herbie Hancock to Schoenberg, he draws his primary influence from American-born jazz and finds great inspiration in western electric dance music as well as the synthesized timbres of modern electronic music and contemporary hip-hop rhythms.

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The Artists

early career, as Irving soon after adapted Spero as an endeared musical disciple and first-call referral.

The Craft The Craft What is an artists craft? How does one describe their artistic process, approach, or the intention of their work? The following section explores questions that relate to the craft of chiBAM! You may wish to consider the following questions as you read.

• How does one define Tap Dance and how does it fit into the larger category of percussive dance?

• What is the relationship between Tap dance and jazz music?

• ChiBAM! travels with a live jazz piano trio when performing. What instruments make up this musical trio and how do these instruments work independently and with one another?

• How does chiBAM describe their work?

• How do the dancers and musicians work together to create a unified jazz score?

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PARTNERS IN TIME:

The Craft

JAZZ AND TAP

Having common origins in African American culture, jazz music and tap dance share syncopated rhythm, improvisation, and “democracy of form.”

Syncopated rhythm or syncopation results from emphasizing off-beats rather than the steady beat underlying music. A simple syncopation is short-long- short sounded over the basic beat.

Syncopation originated in the complicated cross-rhythms of slave melodies and poly-rhythms of African music in which layers of rhythm are laid over the basic beat. To the uninitiated listener, the complex layers may sound as if they no longer relate to the basic beat. African drummers, jazz musicians, and tap dancers know the beat is still governing their music no matter how obscured it is by the complex rhythmic layers.

this history as they create their own variations of a traditional melody or harmonic framework, shaping the music into their own style.

The written score of a jazz piece is simply a skeleton. Each player creates his or her own version, or variation, of the melody. Sometimes the variation is based solely on the harmonic or chord structure. Rhythmic variations played by the jazz drummer and stepped by the tap dancer are created from the skeleton of the rhythm.

One form of improvisation is the call-response found in the blues, originating in the field hollers of the slaves and work songs from Africa. An individual creates new material and the group echoes or answers the material. (Think of the “battle” between two jazz trumpeters or two vaudeville “hoofers” working to outdo each other’s steps.)

Both the jazz musician and tap dancer master the basic “language” of their art form – scales and chords for jazz players, steps for the tap dancer – but develop their individual style from watching and listening to hours and hours of master artist’s performances. They have “arrived” artistically when they have integrated all their experiences, shaping them into their own style.

Improvisation in jazz and tap has roots in the singing culture of Africa. Extemporaneous songs were created to accompany warriors to battle, to recall tribal history, and to honor important occasions. Jazz musicians and tap dancers embody

When these individual styles come together in a jazz or tap ensemble (group), there is a democracy of form. Individuals express themselves with freedom but with a commitment to the group’s overall structure of the piece.

Members of The Chicago Human Rhythm Project.

BAM!’s pieces are a balance of planning and improvisation. The music is arranged. In other words, a musical arranger has structured the piece including some of the improvisation in order for the dancers to plan for the music. The dance is choreographed in order that the group dancing can be in unison, danced with the same steps.

Inserted into the pieces are musical and dance improvisations. Jazz players and tap dancers like to live on the edge of creativity.

Every jazz piece is based on a predetermined chord progression (established series of chords) which underlies the melody. Playing through the chord progression once is called a “chorus.” During the first chorus, the written melody is played. This version is called the “head.”

The typical jazz piece is assembled like a sandwich: • the head, usually involving all the players • a series of choruses in which soloists improvise or, in the case of the piano trio, the piano improvises repeatedly, handing off once to the bass player, once to the drummer • the final chorus, a repeat of the head.

One of the ways BAM! varies its choruses is by changes in texture, the number of layers of sound used.

The dancer’s sound depends on the number of dancers tapping in unison (all the same steps) and the complexity of rhythmic activity (four steps per beat versus one brush that lasts two beats).

The texture is also dependent on how many of the instruments are playing and their rhythmic activity. There are even a cappella tap dances or sections with no instruments playing.

From a Cultural Chicago online interview with Lane Alexander . . .

DOES CHRP HAVE ITS OWN STYLE?

If so, how would you characterize it?

“CHRP (Chicago Human Rhythm Project) is a presenter. I sometimes say “CHRP is the Ravinia* of Rhythm …” so part of our mission is to present as diverse of an array of tap and rhythm as possible within the contexts of tradition, innovation and excellence. CHRP does have a resident performing and teaching ensemble, BAM!, that has a growing repertory of dances including very traditional, post-modern and contemporary works.” * Ravinia: Chicago’s outdoor music festival site hosting all styles of outstanding music. BAM!’s Collaborative Musicians

BAM! PERFORMS WITH A LIVE JAZZ PIANO TRIO. Piano trios are often named for their pianist who is the featured performer.

In BAM!’s accompaniments the jazz trio functions in a traditional way.

THE PIANO, as both a stringed instrument and a percussive instrument (due to the hammers which strike the strings), can play melody, harmony, and rhythm. The piano can stand alone playing jazz, but in a jazz trio it leads both in carrying the melody (tune) and in the improvisations.

Unlike classical music tradition during which the audience is silent, applauding only at the end of a piece, jazz audiences are free to express their appreciation at the end of each solo. Jazz players and tap dancers are hoping for that response.

The double bass adds a rhythmic and harmonic foundation (usually playing the foundation notes of the chords). The drum set provides a rhythmic foundation.

Both accompanying instruments can thicken the sound with increased activity, but most of those changes are provided by the dancers.

The piano’s unique combination of string and percussion is accomplished by its action. The pressing of a key results in a hammer striking 2 or 3 strings. The amount of pressure and acceleration of the finger pressing the key determines the volume of sound and how percussive it sounds. The dampers can be lifted off the strings by the damper (right) pedal.

The result is sustained, lyrical, and even blurred sound.

Esperanza Spalding at The Nobel Peace Prize Concert 2009

THE DOUBLE BASS is also called the string bass or upright bass. Around 1890 when jazz began in New Orleans, it grew from the marching band which used a tuba or sousaphone for the bass line. When jazz moved indoors, the double bass was substituted for a more refined sound. In the 1920s and 1930s, bassists developed the slap style to help the instrument be better heard, slapping and pulling the strings against the finger board rather than simply plucking them. The slap style gives a more percussive sound to the playing.

Despite the advent of the electric bass guitar in popular music, the double bass is still favored for jazz because its lack of frets (metal divisions of the fingerboard) allows the player to slide from note to note and bend sounds.

THE DRUM SET, drum kit, or trap set (from the word “contraption”) is the modern one-man band. It was born during the vaudeville era of the late 1800s. Foot pedal mechanisms to play the bass drum or cymbals were invented in the 1890s, freeing the drummer’s hands to play additional instruments. The drummer sits on a stool called the throne. Each cymbal has a distinctive sound.

The bass drum is played by a pedal operated by the right foot. The snare drum is mounted on a stand, placed between the player’s knees, and played with drum sticks (which create a sharper sound) or brushes (which create a longer swish sound). The snares (spirals of metal mounted against the lower head of the drum) create the distinctive buzz of a snare drum as opposed to the cleaner sound of the floor tom. Hi-hat cymbals (two cymbals mounted to crash together) are on a stand operated by the left foot and played with the sticks, particularly but not only the right hand stick. The crash cymbal produces “crash” accents whose character changes with the luster of the metal. A cleaner cymbal creates a crisper sound, oxidized metal a duller sound. A ride cymbal is usually used to maintain a steady rhythmic pattern. Splash cymbals, sounding like a small crash cymbal, are used for short, syncopated accents.

A china cymbal is a type of splash cymbal which can be used like a ride cymbal for steady patterns. It is the least standardized of the cymbals.

Some famous tappers began as drummers before turning to tap dance: Harold Nicholas, Fred Astaire, Gregory Hines, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and Savion Glover.

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The Craft

TAP SHOES: ANOTHER PERCUSSION INSTRUMENT

T

ap shoes are BAM!’s percussion instrument. They are made of leather uppers with canvas lining. Metal plates are attached on the sole of the shoe at the heel and toe. Men usually wear black-tie oxfords. Women wear twotone spectators, Mary Janes with a strap across the instep, or oxfords. Advanced tap dancers usually wear split sole jazz tap shoes as they are more flexible for harder dance steps.

Three different sounds are produced by three types of taps: teletone, duotone, and supertone. The placement and number of screws create the differences. They can be adjusted to vary the sound as well. Teletones with three screws on each tap are the most common.

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“Most dance floors absorb sound, which is fine for modern and ballet. Ours won’t absorb it, which is great for foot stompers of all varieties. We want to hear the noise!”

CHRP’s brand new studios have rehearsal floors made of Brazilian cherry and sprung maple, two of them boasting a special treatment ideal for tap called Marley Timestep.

Lane Alexander spoke about the company’s floor in a recent article that appeared in the Chicago Tribune entitled Human Rhythm Project ready to get loud, written by Sid Smith. “Most dance floors absorb sound, which is fine for modern and ballet,” Lane Alexander explained. “Ours won’t absorb it, which is great for foot stompers of all varieties. We want to hear the noise.”

The Craft

FILLING THE BEAT WITH TAPS

The following is a vocabulary of tap steps (“Tap Dance Technique”, Wikipedia.org) arranged by the number of sounds produced per beat. For a dictionary of tap steps with accompanying videos, please see http://www.tapdancedictionary.com/ .

STEPS WITH ONE SOUND Toe: tap the ball or pad of the foot against the floor,use your ankle not your whole leg.

Ball heel: strike the ball of the foot on the floor and drop your heel.

Heel tap: strike the heel of the foot on the floor and release it immediately.

Step: place the ball of the foot on the floor with a change of weight.

Touch: place the ball of the foot on the floor without change of weight.

Stamp: place the flat foot on the floor without a change of weight.

Stomp: place the flat foot on the floor with a change of weight.

(Heel) dig: place the heel on the floor, keeping the ball off the floor (with or without change of weight).

Heel (drop): standing on the balls of one or both feet, "drop" the heel on the floor, with or without change of weight.

Ball (drop): standing on the heels of one or both feet, "drop" the ball on the floor, with or without change of weight.

Toe: hit the floor with the tip of the foot, usually behind the other foot, without change of weight.

Toe stand: stand on one or both tips of the feet. This requires fairly stiff tap shoes.

Hop: standing on one foot, jump up and land on the same foot.

Leap: standing on one foot, jump up and land on the other foot.

Jump: standing on one or both feet, jump up and land on both feet.

Brush: standing on one leg (e.g. the left), the other foot is "brushed out" by striking the ball of the foot (i.e. the right) on the floor in a sweeping motion forward or backward from the hip.

Scuff: as a brush, but striking the floor with the heel instead of the ball of the foot

STEPS WITH TWO SOUNDS

Shuffle: combine two brushes, one forward and one backward. A faster shuffle can be achieved by making smaller movements that are closer to the body.

There are actually many different ways to perform a shuffle. Broadway-style shuffles use knee movement to swing the foot into a shuffle. Hoofers generally execute a shuffle from movement in the upper leg and hip. While a faster shuffle may seem to come from the ankle, it is actually much easier to get speed and clarity from the hip, which is why this method is preferred.

Scuffle or paddle: combine a scuff with a backward brush.

Flap: brush forward and a step (which is striking the ball of the foot on the floor with a change of weight; similar to a walking step, only done on the ball of the foot—the heel does not touch the floor). The flap is often counted as "& 1."

It is similar to the shuffle, but instead of brushing the ball back after the brush forward, the dancer steps (i.e. brush step instead of brush brush, as in a shuffle).

Slap: brush forward and a touch, similar to the flap but without change of weight.

Pickup: standing on the balls of one or both feet, jump up, hitting the ground with the ball(s) of the foot/feet, and land on the same foot (or again both feet) Pullback: standing on the ball of one foot, jump up, hitting the ground with the ball of the foot you stood on, and land on the other foot.

Riff: standing on one leg, swing the other leg to the front, first hitting the ground with the ball of the foot, then with the heel.

Ball change: two steps on alternating feet. The first step does not get full weight.

STEPS WITH THREE SOUNDS

Riffle: a riff combined with a backward brush.

Slurp: one foot is placed on the floor with or without weight, first hitting with the ball, then with the heel, then again with the ball. This step is usually very fast with precision.

Shuffle-hop-step: a shuffle connected with a hop and a step on the foot that had brushed in the beginning.

Three beat shuffle: the same movement as a two beat shuffle except with a heel

STEPS WITH FOUR SOUNDS

Cramp roll: Steps and heel drops can be combined to make a cramp roll which produces a rolling sound like a horse gallop or a drum roll. It is performed by doing two steps (right then left or vice versa), followed by two heel drops (right then left or vice versa), releasing the first heel immediately upon completion.

In other words, it is performed as "ball (R) ball (L) heel (R) heel (L)" and is often counted as "1 and a 2." It may be preceded by a brush (counted as "& 1 & a 2" and known as a flap cramp roll or 5-cramp roll) or done double time, known as a "bite cramproll" and counted as "a & a 1."

Paradidle: a scuffle, followed by step heel, all on the same foot.

Riff walk: a riff, followed by a dig-ball on the same foot. Can be extended to a 5-sound riff walk by inserting a heel on the other foot between the riff and the dig-ball.

Four beat shuffle: a shuffle with four beats, with relaxed movement of the foot.

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The Craft ADDITIONAL TAP STEPS

The following are additional common tap steps (not organized by number of beats.)

Buffalo: (cross foot in front) step (leap) SHUFFLE STEP Chugs: lift heels, slide forward and then drop the heels at the end of the slide forward

Flap heel: brush step heel

A cappella: unaccompanied

Irish: shuffle HOP step

Accompaniment: musical layers supporting the main melody or tune.

Maxi Ford: this tap dance move consists of the following four movements stamp, shuffle, pick-up, toe OR step SHUFFLE STEP toe (tip) (toe-tip crosses in back) Over-the-tops: step KICK LEG INTO THE AIR, jump over the airborne leg and land on the original stepping foot

Chord progression: set series of chords (3 or more pitches played together).

Chorus: one repetition of a jazz piece’s chord progression under the main melody.

Shuffle ball change: shuffle movement (combine two brushes, one forward and one backward) followed with a ball change Time steps: a recognizable rhythmic tap combination. The term comes from the time of great tap dancers that used their distinctive Time Step to tell the band the desired tempo.

Wings: start on the balls of the feet with feet together, scrape both feet outwards and into the air, then spank both feet inwards at the same time and land on the balls of the feet with your feet together

GLOSSARY OF RELATED MUSICAL TERMS

Head: the first presentation of a jazz piece’s chord progression with the main melody.

Improvisation: in jazz and tap, the spontaneous creating of music or dance arising from practiced technique and the given framework of the piece.

Percussion: the group of instruments which produce sound when they are struck, scraped, rubbed or shaken.

Swing: a jazz style originated in the 1930's characterized by a strong rhythmic groove or feel, accents on the off-beats (beats 2 and 4), and often accented triplets (three notes to a beat) called a shuffle rhythm.

Syncopation: rhythmic emphasis or accenting of divisions of the beat rather than the beat itself.

Tempo: speed of beat.

Texture: the way melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic layers are combined in music.

The Origins

The Origins The following section contains brief information pertaining to the historical context of the work.You may wish to consider the following questions as you read.

• What are the origins of percussive dance?

• How has tap evolved from other forms of percussive dance? In what ways do we see the influences of these original forms of percussive dance within modern tap?

• How has jazz music evolved?

• What are some of the key moments within the history of jazz music?

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The Origins myMagazine

PERCUSSIVE DANCE: A Genre from All Times and Cultures Tap is percussive dance, a genre which has existed across time and cultures as is evidenced by the list of percussive dance from around the world below.

African Dance South African welly boot or gumboot dance

TAP ROOTS

“Tap dancers in the 21st century are more likely to identify themselves as Percussionists or musicians - who move through space.”

– Lane Alexander, executive director of CHRP

Irish Sean-nós step dancing Zapateado of Spanish Flamenco, where nails are hammered into the heal and the front part of the dancers shoes, so that the rhythm of their steps can be heard Stepping of African-American college fraternities and sororities Stomp dancing where the sound of other objects is used to enhance the stomping sound of the foot, practiced by eastern Native American tribes Clogging, born in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom and transported to Appalachia. Clogging can be done with no accompanying music, just the noise of the shoes. What sets tap apart from clogging and European percussive dance is its syncopated steps reinforced by jazz music which evolved at the same time.

Body percussion (clapping, snapping, slapping, and stomping) may have been the earliest sounds accompanying dance.

(For a brief demonstration of the cultural varieties of body percussion, see body percussionist Keith Terry http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKzko9z8jU8.)

When slaves were denied drums used for long-distance communication in their native West Africa, they turned to body percussion as a substitute. Juba, the plantation dance also called hambone, combined stomping with patting and slapping of arms, thighs, chest, and cheeks. From Juba came some of the footwork incorporated into tap dance.

Tap dance was born in the 1830s in the Five Points neighborhood of lower Manhattan where immigrant groups gathered for dance competitions. The fusion of Irish jigs and African shuffles led to the steps we know as tap dancing.

William Henry Lane, called Master Juba, was the first African American allowed to perform with white minstrel dancers in the 1840s. Lane and an Irishman named John Diamond were promoted in a series of staged tap dance competitions throughout the United States. Lane won most of them. He went on to perform before the crowned heads of Europe and was proclaimed the greatest dancer of all time by American and European critics alike.

From Tap and Jazz by Nikki Gamble . . .

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“On a visit to Five Points, the author Charles Dickens watched Lane perform. He wrote this description of Lane’s dancing: ‘Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping his fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and heels like nothing but the man’s fingers on the tambourine.’”

Tap dancing was an element of minstrel shows and then of vaudeville which gradually replaced minstrel shows in the 1880s. Due to the “two-colored rule” requiring black vaudevillians to perform in pairs, tap acts were often duos featuring a tap dancer and a solo pianist. Dancers often wore tuxedos to counter the clownish image of African Americans that had been promoted in minstrel shows.

As jazz bands became popular in the 1900s, some employed tap dancers to enliven their shows. Sometime in 1903 Ned Wayburn, tiring of heavy-footed clog dances on stages, put small metal plates on the bottom of dancers’ shoes for a lighter, steelier sound which could be produced with slighter, more graceful movement.

The metal taps allowed the dancers’ foot percussion to be heard over a band and to step more clearly when chorus lines of many dancers tapped in unison.

Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (1878 - 1949) began tapping with troupes in the 1880s and joined the vaudeville circuit in 1905.

He went on to dance in nightclubs, on Broadway, and in movies with Shirley Temple. Robinson’s style was lighter and more reserved than the frantic jitterbug popular on the dance floor, producing crystal clear sound with wooden taps. He rarely used his upper body which he kept in upright posture, focusing attention on his feet and notably expressive face.

National Tap Dance Day, established in 1989, is celebrated on Robinson’s birthday.

In the 1920s and 1930s as tap dancing moved from vaudeville and nightclubs to Broadway and movies, acrobatics were added by some dancers like the Nicholas Brothers in a style called Flash Tap. Stunts like leaping from platforms or doing splits were added without interrupting the rhythm of the taps.

John Bubbles’ (1902 - 1986) style, on the other hand, was slow and syncopated. He is known as the “father of rhythm tap,” which reinvented tap dance as part of the jazz sound. Fred Astaire took lessons from Bubbles, whom he considered the master tap dancer of his generation. Years later Michael Jackson studied Bubbles’ steps.

In the mid-1920s the Four Step Brothers created an act they titled “The Eight Feet of Rhythm” and traveled with Duke Ellington’s band. They were the first African American act ever to play New York’s Radio City Music Hall and continued to dance together on stage and screen through 1965.

Bill “Bojangles” Robinson

Paul Draper (1910 - 1986) added to the tap repertoire by dancing to classical music.

His style was honored by CHRP’s Lane Alexander in a 2002 duet with a classical violinist.

Caucasians like Draper, Fred Astaire, and Ray Bolger often supplanted African American tap masters in the movies.

In his post-war movies, Gene Kelly incorporated modern dance and ballet into his style of tap dancing.

In the 1950s tap dancing declined.

Modern dance was becoming popular on stage and screen, and jazz was becoming more cerebral and less oriented to dancing. Interest in tap was reborn in the 1980's, however, with the Broadway production of Sophisticated Ladies and the movies White Nights and Tap, all starring Gregory Hines.

The newest leader of tap is Savion Glover, whose fusion of tap with hiphop and funk is called Power Tapping, featuring dense, hard-hitting rhythms.

He began his performing career at age 10 on Broadway with The Tap Dance Kid and won the 1996 Tony award for Best Choreography for his Bring in da Noise, Bring in da Funk.

Savion Glover

The Origins myMagazine

Jazz tap developed in tandem with jazz music in the 1920s. Jazz tap incorporated improvisation and focused more on creating music with its steps than Broadway tap, which emphasized the appearance of the steps and arrangement of the dancers. In fact, jazz tap dancers sometimes danced a cappella, with no instrumental music.

A HISTORY OF JAZZ How did so many African Americans come to be piano players in the 1890s?

After being freed, African Americans invested in the musical instruments they had watched their owners play. Booker T. Washington talks about visiting a household that shared only one fork but was paying monthly installments on a small organ in the corner of their cabin. Bar and brothel pianists of the 1890s learned keyboard playing at home. Many didn’t read music fluently but became great improvisers.

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Late 1890s Jazz is rooted in two musical styles developed in African American communities of the South: blues and ragtime. The blues evolved from hymns, work songs, and field hollers — music used to accompany spiritual, work and social functions. Initially the blues were performed by solo singers accompanying themselves on a single instrument. It was structured over a chord progression of basic chords in 12 measures, 12-bar blues.

Improvising over a chord progression became basic to what emerged as jazz.

Ragtime evolved from crossing the popular marches of the late 1800s like those of John Philip Sousa with the poly-rhythms of African music.

It was dance music played on a solo piano and popularized by the African American composer, Scott Joplin. Ragtime style used the left hand to keep a steady beat like the foot stomping and body percussion from slave dances. The right hand played melodies like the syncopated fiddle and banjo tunes slaves had danced to.

1900 - 1920 “New Orleans had a great tradition of celebration. Opera, military marching bands, folk music, the blues, different types of church music, ragtime, echoes of traditional African drumming, and all of the dance styles that went with this music could be heard and seen throughout the city.

When all of these kinds of music blended into one, jazz was born.”

— Wynton Marsalis, trumpeter and co-founder of Jazz at Lincoln Center Chord progressions from the blues, syncopation from ragtime, bands from popular white culture, improvisation from folk artists who didn’t read music all contributed to the new art form – jazz. Even before the Civil War the New Orleans Picayune noted the city’s “mania for horn and trumpet playing” so jazz was played by bands rather than by soloists like the blues and ragtime. It created openings for solo improvisation, though, to show

off the talents of its players.

Afro-Creole jazz pianist Jelly Roll Morton published the first jazz arrangement in 1915, his “Jelly Roll Blues.” The Original Dixieland Jazz Band’s “Livery Stable Blues” became the first jazz recording in 1917.

Louis Armstrong

1940s 1920s Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong are credited with beginning to swing the stiff rhythms of ragtime. Armstrong took the original New Orleans style of theme and variation with collective improvisation and developed it into planned arrangements, featured soloists, and improvisation on the chords rather than just the melody.

After World War I America was flush with money and spent it on live entertainment. Jazz became popular for dancing but was thought to be ruining the country. “Moral disaster is coming to hundreds of young American girls,” reported the New York American, “through the pathological, nerveirritating, sex-exciting music of jazz orchestras.”

“If you really understand the meaning of bebop, you understand the meaning of freedom.”

—Thelonious Monk, pianist and composer In the early 1940s jazz evolved from purely dance music into a musical performance genre featuring soloists like saxophonist Charlie Parker, pianists Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk, trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown, and drummer Max Roach. Bebop, had fast tempos, intricate melodies, and complex harmonies.

Bebop was considered jazz for intellectuals’ listening.

1930s

1950s

Swing big bands with featured soloists as leaders (Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Fletcher Henderson, Paul Whiteman, and Benny Goodman) became popular for dancing during the Great Depression. The style altered the big band sound with increasingly complicated solos improvising on the melody and chords.

The popularity of Cuban music reintroduced the complexities of West African rhythms into jazz.

Countering the complexities of Afro-Cuban jazz was the revival of Dixieland jazz through reissues of early 20th century recordings. Cool jazz countered the frenzy of bebop with long, lyrical lines. Chet Baker, Dave Brubeck, Bill Evans, Gil Evans, Stan Getz and the Modern Jazz Quartet performed this lighter jazz.

1960s to the Present

Duke Ellington

As jazz spread around the world, different cultures have adapted it with new musical elements, always retaining improvisation, repetition of harmonic progressions, and complex, syncopated rhythms. Jazz has been popularized by fusion with rock, using electronic instruments, and welcomed in concert halls when fused with avant-garde music. Both styles are played by Chick Corea to whose music BAM! dances.

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