Jared Aronoff

Professor Colleen Kriesel

Tap for Musical Theater
12/04/15

Savion Glover: Bring in Da Legend, Bring in Da Talent!

In some cases, legends are born not made. On November 19th, 1973, a tap dance prodigy was
welcomed into the world. Growing up in Newark, New Jersey, Savion Glover starting tapping during
rehearsals for his band Three Plus One because he insisted on dancing during his drumming. By the
time he was fourteen years old, Glover was casually teaching street tap and hoofing classes where he
also introduced the HooFeRz Club School for Tap. As a teacher, Glover specifically emphasized
exploring theory and musicality in ones approach to tap dance. He made it his mission to help his
students be able to classify themselves with inventive practice skills that can revise and refine their
own approach to Tap Dancing. Thats what makes Mr. Glover an individual!
As a student, Savion Glover was a sponge, he was constantly picking up choreography with
ease and wonderful execution. One of his teachers, the incomparable and well-renowned tap dancer
Gregory Hines made mention that, "Savion is possibly the best tap dancer that ever lived". Later on in
his life, besides television appearances and film debuts, Mr. Glover went on to perform in Broadway
shows such as, The Tap Dance Kid, Black and Blue, Jellys Last Jam, and Bring in Da Noise,
Bring in Da Funk which earned him a Tony Award for best choreography. All in all, Savion Glovers
young and funk hitting-styled tap broke barriers by bringing hoofing back into the mainstream, a feat
that would change musical theater for the contemporary future.

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A contemporary dancer and choreographer, Savion Glover was an individual. He
became known for his unique pounding style of tap dancing, called hitting wherein molded musical
theater into a spectacle once again. Hitting is a technique where Glover uses a heavy foot for tap by
dancing hard and loud in every step. He uses this style of hoofing and street tap to express himself by
completing a tap sequence or to saying something with emotion and feeling in his choreography. This
in turn brought a renewed interest in dance, particularly among youths and minorities in contemporary
musical theater. Another tap style in which Glover was celebrated for, and which he christened freeform hard core, was when he was working with dancers such as Gregory Hines, Henry Le Tang, and
Sammy Davis, Jr. When Glover choreographs a piece with this stylized dance, he uses improvisation as
way of generating dance sequences. As he specifically looks for rhythms, he also listens for new
sounds and expressions at many points on stage. With all of Savions implausible accomplishments, he
also proved to move mountains for the black community within musical theater, introducing funk and
ethnic elements, which in turn completely benefited the appeal and spectacle of theater.
Not only has Savion Glover changed the lives of many musical theater-goers, his
accomplishments and stylized dance influenced myself to continue to pursue performance and tap
dance as a career choice. I look at him as a mentor, someone who is as fluid and knows exactly what he
is doing is definitely worth studying in my book. Savion brings so many things to the table regarding
talent on a visual, auditory and visceral level.
Visually, Glovers aesthetics were completely unique offering an abundance of individuality
with every step. When tap dancing I need to remember that I must lead with my emotions. If that is the
way I act, isnt dancing another form of acting? By adding an emotional value to each pound and hit
thatll make my dance more memorable. This in turn will add an aesthetic to my dance, a pleasing
quality to the audiences eye.

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In an auditory level, rhythm is extremely important to me when it comes to tapping. Without
having a rhythm, your dance would not be unique and your own. By adding digs instead of taps and
steps, that introduces more harsh emotions into the acting of the piece. By making yourself vulnerable
through the sound of the taps, your performance would be worthwhile to watch.
Viscerally, I would really like Savion Glovers work to resonate inside of me. With his
variability in style, I am intrigued by the fluidity of his movements, and one day I wish to be as
accomplished and as smooth of a dancer as he is. A step that I am interested in learning is sliding.
Through my research on Savion Glover, I am sure to understand this move in no time.
In conclusion, Savion Glover is unique, visionary, and a breaker of many walls in musical
theater which is what drew me so much to him. I wish and hope that through my studies with tap
dance, I would be able to at least be on the same level as Mr. Glover. I could not deny, being in a
couple of Broadway shows is not really that hard of a life! But his talent and illustrative choreography
is immense and changed the way contemporary musical theater dance is looking at in todays society,
especially for tap dance. Some might consider tap as a dying dance-form, however, due to Savion
Glovers incredible and innovative additions to this realm I beg to differ! Savion Glover, a visionary
today but a legend for all time.

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Works Cited

Savion Glover American Dancer." Encyclopedia Britannica.

Britannica, n.d. Web. 3 Dec. 2015.

Savion Glover." Broadway Dance Center. Broadway Dance Center, n.d.

Web. 3 Dec. 2015.