If you've been watching Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance," you already know that the three tap dancers have already been sent home. My question is why quickstep and not tap? This week, with the top ten, the quickstep was performed again--with a small nod to tap by the new dream team: Jakob Karr and Ellenore Scott.
Karr and Scott danced the quickstep to the Manhattan Transfer's "Four Brothers." The routine was lovely and Nigel Lythgoe acknowledged the bit of "tap" in the routine choreographed by tony Meredith and Melanie LaPatin.
That is a nod to tap dancing while not tapping, but what about the real tap dancers who were sent packing so soon. Another routine on Tuesday also referenced tap: "Choreography" by Danny Kaye which was dubbed a Broadway dance and performed by Kathryn McCormick and Nathan Trasoras. Both routines silently stand witness to the importance of tap in American dance and question why it is absent from the "So You Think You Can Dance" repertoire.
This season was the first that three tap dancers made the top twenty.
The outspoken Phillip Attmore, Pasadena-native, wasn't the first guy sent home. That was one-day wonder Brandon Dumlao. From Concord, CA, Dumlao replaced top 20 dancer Billy Bell and had come in to partner with Pauline Mata on short notice after her intended partner, Billy Bell, withdrew suddenly due to illness. Attmore, 25, was sent home the second week along with Bianca Revels, another tap dancer.
Partnered with Channing Cookie, he performed a jive to the Jackson 5's "Rockin' Robin" the first week and then the samba to "Maracatu Funk" by the Samba Squad the second week. Attmore had toured with the Broadway show, "Fosse" along with Peter Sabasino.
Sabasino, 22, a native of Philadelphia, first was partnered with Ariana DeBose to perform a hip hop routine to "Black and Gold" by Sam Sparro. His next partner would be Pauline Mata for a jazz routine to "Little Green Bag" by George Baker Selection week 2 and then, for week three, the deadly quickstep to "Hey Baby! (Shake those Hula Hips)" by Big Kahuna and the Copa Cat Pack. Both Mata and Sabasino were eliminated week 3.
Bianca Revels had auditioned the last two seasons (4 and 5). Originally from Detroit, she was partnered with Victor Smalley for a contemporary number week 1 to "Wasted Time" by Me'shell Ndegeocello and then a Broadway number to "Maybe God is Tryin' to Tell you Something" from "The Color Purple."
Revels was the first female tap dancer to break into the top 20. Sabasino and Attmore, along with Revels, were the first tap dancers on the show and only got to tap dance once: During a special introductory show when each of the top twenty dancers was teamed with others to perform within their genre. And that points out a weakness in SYTYCD. Where are the percussive dances?
Think of how many times you've seen the quickstep, a ballroom dance style that is known as the kiss of death on SYTYCD. In the movies, I can only think of movies that were about ballroom: The original "Shall We Dance?" in Japanese. Was the quickstep performed in the American version? And what about "Take the Lead"? I can't recall, I just remember the tango, but that is my and Ian's preferred dance.
Do you think there will ever be a dance movie devoted to the quickstep? According to Wikipedia, the quickstep is English in origin, coming out of the foxtrot and standardized in 1927. Tap, seems to be an American dance form coming out of the English clogging, and Irish step dancing as well as African rhythmic dancing and Spanish flamenco.
President George Bush signed a bill in 1989 designating 25 May as National Tap Dance Day. The day was chosen because it was the birthday of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. Famous American tap dancers include Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Shirley Temple, Gregory Hines, Maurice Hines and Savion Glover.
Movies about tap include the 1989 "Tap," the 1933 "42nd Street," and the more recent 2006 animation "Happy Feet." On Broadway? How about George Wolfe (conceived and directed) and choreographer Savion Glover's 1995 "Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk"? Or the 1992 "Jelly's Last Jam" which won Gregory Hines a Tony? "Mary Poppins" which is currently on stage at the Ahmanson has a tap sequence.
If not tap, then what about stepping? The Howard University "Beta' chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha stepped at the inauguration for Bill Clinton. Movies such as the 1988 "School Daze," the 2002 "Drumline" and the more recent 2007 "Stomp the Yard."
Fred Astaire brought ballroom into tap. Gene Kelly brought ballet into tap. Gregory Hines tapped with ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov and he co-founded the Tap Legacy Foundation with Andrew J. Nemr in 2002--a year before Hines' death. Debbie Allen, who has been a guest judge on SYTYCD has her own academy, the Debbie Allen Dance Academy, which for the seventh year has sponsored the Los Angeles Tap Festival.
For a dance show based in America, why not include an important dance form from America like tap?
Comments
Because it's an insult to tap to just throw a pair of tap shoes on a ballroom dancer. There's a reason why when little girls start dancing they take tap and ballet. It's because tap, unlike contemporary or jazz, is not merely an extension of ballet.
Tap isn't really something a contemporary dancer can just pick up. Plus, the three tappers weren't that good at other styles anyway. That's why they went home.
Alison, that's circular logic isn't it? If there was some type of percussive dance required in Vegas or the final 20, someone else might have gone home because they weren't good at it.
You could also think that it's an insult to ballroom dancers to have a tap dancer throw on ballroom shoes. Ballroom is not an extension of ballet and jazz wasn't originally an extension of ballet either (and what of hip hop)?
Tap and ballet cannot be taught in five hours, which is what the dancers have to work with. And they certainly can't be faked.
So Hamilton, we shouldn't expect dancers to have learned tap and what about step? And in Los Angeles, what about flamenco?
The title of the show is "So You Think You Can Dance" and about professional dancers. The title isn't "So You Think You Can Contemporary and Ballroom Dance."
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