Savion Glover - Prodigal Work

Prodigal Work

Savion claims his style is young and funk. When asked to describe what funk is, he says it is the bass line. Funk is anything that gets one's head on beat. It is riding with the rhythm. It is a pulse that keeps one rolling with the beat.

Gregory Hines, a tap legend, was once one of Glover's tap teachers. Hines states that, "Savion is possibly the best tap dancer that ever lived." Savion likes to start his pieces with some old school moves from famous tappers and then work his way into his own style. Hines says it’s like paying homage to those he respects, those he looks up to. When Honi Coles died, Savion performed at his memorial service. He finished his dance with a famous Coles move, a backflip into a split from standing position, then getting up without using one's hands. Savion rarely does this move because it wasn't his style, but he did it because it was Coles' style that Savion wanted to keep alive, "I feel like it's one of my responsibilities to keep the dance alive, to keep it out there, to keep the style."

Henry Le Tang calls Glover the Sponge because he learns very quickly with everything that is thrown at him. Le Tang taught the Hines brothers back in the 1950s and taught Glover for a little while before having him work for "Black and Blue," a tap revue in Paris in 1987. Glover is the future of tap. Many legendary tappers taught Glover such as Le Tang, the Hines brothers, Jimmy Slyde, Chuck Green, Lon Chaney (Isaiah Chaneyfield), Honi Coles, Sammy Davis, Jr., Buster Brown, Howard Sims, and Arthur Duncan. They all passed on their moves and talents to Savion after he went public with his career with the Broadway performance in, "The Tap Dance Kid" at the age of ten.