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So another season of “Dancing With the Stars” has wrapped, with Pittsburgh Steeler wide receiver Hines Ward hoisting high the prized glitterball trophy amidst confetti and ovations and a wildly convulsing Bruno Tonioli.
Yes, I will admit it: Craven is a fan of a show comprised of famous celebrities (who aren't, really) ballroom dancing (kind of) in tasteful costumes (not!).
What can I say? To watch a Viennese Waltz or Argentinian Tango executed well is to be transported... and there is something equally transfixing in watching those same dances horribly bobbled by a star whose dignity is so rarely risked.
Meanwhile, during the past few weeks, Craven has also been rediscovering the sheer pleasure of the 1930s-era films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Movies like “Top Hat,” “The Gay Divorcee,” “Flying Down to Rio” and “Shall We Dance?” are as close to perfect entertainment as I can imagine. The gorgeous deco art design, the fast-paced, lightweight comedy, the loose, sexy chemistry between Fred and Ginger — and, of course, the dance, which somehow wordlessly ignites my soul.
All of which has led me in recent days to ponder the symbiotic relationship between music and dance... and to consider the one style of dance that actually IS music:
Tap.
Tap is a dance form, obviously. But it is equally a type of percussion, one from which many people derive great satisfaction, to the extent that recordings of tap performances have been made since at least the early 1940s, when for instance WPA folklorists Robert Cornwall and Robert Cook recorded a group of Florida shrimphouse workers executing a group tap routine.
Nowadays, tap experts like Shelley Oliver (the featured tap soloist with the David Leonhardt Jazz Group) and Brenda Bufalino (creator of the American Tap Dance Orchestra) sell CDs of recorded tap routines. Meanwhile, choreographer Heather Cornell has played jazz festivals around the world with her show of tap-anchored music, “Finding Synesthesia,” which she produced with Toronto pianist Andy Milne.
Even the world of alternative rock is not immune to the allure of tap dancing. Tilly and the Wall, an unusual alternative band from Omaha, Neb., with musical ties to Conor Oberst's Bright Eyes, features a tap dancer in lieu of a drummer. Since 2001, Jamie Pressnall (wife of guitarist Derek Pressnall) has provided the percussion for the band on albums such as “Bottom of Barrels” and “o” -- mostly with her feet.
Tap dancing, like so much of American culture, is a mashup of Irish and African influences first concocted in the crucible of early 19th century American immigrant populations.
At a time when both ethnic groups were much despised by the mainstream and vied against each other for the same hard labor and menial jobs, there were often bloody consequences (like the horrible New York City Draft Riots of 1863). But there was also a great flowering of American culture that sprouted from the mixture of Irish and black American traditions, and tap dance was one such blossom.
Even to this day, there is something profound in the syncopated athleticism of tap. And in its unique spot at the nexus of European and African cultures, and of dance and music, it still manages to thrill -- even on record.
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Notes is supported by the Gay and Lesbian Fund, promoting spiritual and religious expression throughout Colorado.
Craven Lovelace produces Notes, a daily cultural history of popular music, for KAFM 88.1 Community Radio, kafmradio.org. You can visit cravenlovelace.com for more of his musings on the world of popular culture.
Yes, I will admit it: Craven is a fan of a show comprised of famous celebrities (who aren't, really) ballroom dancing (kind of) in tasteful costumes (not!).
What can I say? To watch a Viennese Waltz or Argentinian Tango executed well is to be transported... and there is something equally transfixing in watching those same dances horribly bobbled by a star whose dignity is so rarely risked.
Meanwhile, during the past few weeks, Craven has also been rediscovering the sheer pleasure of the 1930s-era films of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Movies like “Top Hat,” “The Gay Divorcee,” “Flying Down to Rio” and “Shall We Dance?” are as close to perfect entertainment as I can imagine. The gorgeous deco art design, the fast-paced, lightweight comedy, the loose, sexy chemistry between Fred and Ginger — and, of course, the dance, which somehow wordlessly ignites my soul.
All of which has led me in recent days to ponder the symbiotic relationship between music and dance... and to consider the one style of dance that actually IS music:
Tap.
Tap is a dance form, obviously. But it is equally a type of percussion, one from which many people derive great satisfaction, to the extent that recordings of tap performances have been made since at least the early 1940s, when for instance WPA folklorists Robert Cornwall and Robert Cook recorded a group of Florida shrimphouse workers executing a group tap routine.
Nowadays, tap experts like Shelley Oliver (the featured tap soloist with the David Leonhardt Jazz Group) and Brenda Bufalino (creator of the American Tap Dance Orchestra) sell CDs of recorded tap routines. Meanwhile, choreographer Heather Cornell has played jazz festivals around the world with her show of tap-anchored music, “Finding Synesthesia,” which she produced with Toronto pianist Andy Milne.
Even the world of alternative rock is not immune to the allure of tap dancing. Tilly and the Wall, an unusual alternative band from Omaha, Neb., with musical ties to Conor Oberst's Bright Eyes, features a tap dancer in lieu of a drummer. Since 2001, Jamie Pressnall (wife of guitarist Derek Pressnall) has provided the percussion for the band on albums such as “Bottom of Barrels” and “o” -- mostly with her feet.
Tap dancing, like so much of American culture, is a mashup of Irish and African influences first concocted in the crucible of early 19th century American immigrant populations.
At a time when both ethnic groups were much despised by the mainstream and vied against each other for the same hard labor and menial jobs, there were often bloody consequences (like the horrible New York City Draft Riots of 1863). But there was also a great flowering of American culture that sprouted from the mixture of Irish and black American traditions, and tap dance was one such blossom.
Even to this day, there is something profound in the syncopated athleticism of tap. And in its unique spot at the nexus of European and African cultures, and of dance and music, it still manages to thrill -- even on record.
------------------------------
Notes is supported by the Gay and Lesbian Fund, promoting spiritual and religious expression throughout Colorado.
Craven Lovelace produces Notes, a daily cultural history of popular music, for KAFM 88.1 Community Radio, kafmradio.org. You can visit cravenlovelace.com for more of his musings on the world of popular culture.
