Savion Glover - Teaching

Teaching

Taught tap since he was fourteen years old. Glover created Real Tap Skills. He started HooFeRzCLuB School for Tap Newark, New Jersey.

Wants to bring back the real essence of tap. Savion claims he is on a mission to reclaim the rhythm that was lost when tap dancing was recycled after many generations. It started in Harlem with Sissle and Blake's 1921 musical "Shuffle Along," then to Broadway, and then in Hollywood. There in Hollywood, it lost its meaning amongst the entertainment and jazz hands. Savion wants to keep the tap real, keeping the rhythm below the waist without having to incorporate the jazz smiles and jazz hands. He wants to honor that authentic African-rooted sound.

In the pre-Civil War South, slaves were forbidden to use drums because their owners feared of rebellion. Because drums were unattainable, the rhythm of the beat was relocated to their feet in the form of tap. There was a connection of the tap beat and the subversive liberation. Many tappers have played the drums in their lifetime. In addition to Savion, Harold Nicholas, Fred Astaire, Gregory Hines, and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson went from drums to tap. At the age of seven, Savion drummed in a group called Three Plus One. In the group, he demanded that he danced while he played the drum. Tap is like a drum solo where one may create many tones from the foot. The heel may be used as the bass drum, the ball as the snare, and the side of the foot as a rim shot. A regular tap dancer knows the typical ball and heel movement, but not many know about the side of the arch, the inside of the foot.

Glover has a heavy foot for tap. He dances hard and loud in every step. He teaches his mentees that one must learn how to hit. "Hitting" is a term related to one's ability to express oneself, to complete a tap sequence, to say something. One can't hit if he or she cannot express themselves. Savion claims that tap won't go anywhere if tap is kept within the classroom. One must reach that point where one can hit by incorporating all the classroom moves, but converting it into his or her own style. Savion likes to see what one has learned in the class, but he only likes to see one's true self behind the new moves, how one feels, how one hears the rhythms, without any restrictions.