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Good feet
LaVaughn Robinson and Tapestry 2002
BY MARCIA B. SIEGEL

" They all got good feet, " remarked dance veteran LaVaughn Robinson Friday night at the National Heritage Museum in Lexington after watching the little number he’d choreographed for 15 young tappers. Robinson received the Tapestry 2002 award at Dance Inn’s gala National Tap Dance Day concert. As the honoree of the evening, he danced a couple of numbers with his partner, Germaine Ingram, and shed a calm benevolence over the evening’s array of dancers in varying ages and flavors.

There’s a lot of expert, Broadwayized tap around these days, but Tapestry is more informal, the kind of show that reveals the true heart of tap: its continuity, adaptability, and audience rapport. Hosted by the bouncy Dianne Walker, Tapestry 2002 incorporated two Irish stepdancers, Boston modern jazz choreographer Adrienne Hawkins, Dance Inn director Thelma Goldberg with her students and protégés, nods to celebrities in the audience, and a tribute to the late Buster Brown presided over by Josh Hilberman. Paul Arslanian led the three-man combo that backed them up. The whole cast reassembled for the traditional wind-up doing the shim sham shimmy.

The unison chorus line might be a simplistic way to present tap, but there’s something satisfying about three or four or 25 pairs of feet chattering away and making a single sound. It isn’t the gunshot attack of absolute unison. Minute timing differences surround every tap, click, and slam with a slight burr, like the vibrating metal flaps on an African drum. When the Dance Inn students, dubbed the Legacy Dancers, opened up to " Doin’ the New Lowdown, " you could see that some of the teenagers had their own sense of how the weight and rhythm of the steps came down whereas others simply smiled and did all steps the same. Thelma Goldberg, with Robin and Sebi Goldberg, concocted a reasonable facsimile of the living-room dance " Good Mornin’  " from Singin’ in the Rain, where Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor, and Debbie Reynolds celebrate having figured out how to rescue talkies from the zombie-voiced stars of the silent screen. The Goldbergs didn’t have any furniture to somersault over, but they approximated the ecstatically goofy choreography of Kelly and Stanley Donen — the arm-in-arm strolling tap, the totem pole with the raincoats, the tap ballet barre — and cartwheeled into a boffo final pose.

Josh Hilberman represents the casual end of tap. A big man in shirttails, he moves with loose arms, loose knees and ankles, in a kind of slap-footed shambling locomotion. The harder he taps, the more irresistibly his feet seem to propel him forward or backward. At times he seemed about to lurch out of control. Other times he’d just stop and let the musicians play while he considered his next move. He did a counterpoint duet with bassist John Lockwood where they both got softer and softer but lost none of their intricacy. Later he and drummer Ron Savage exchanged challenges with alternating phrases, each one trying to imitate or outdo the phrase the other one had laid down.

A kind of freewheeling spontaneity characterizes the best tap dancers. Buster Brown, who died recently, received the Tapestry award two years ago. In a clip filmed at that performance, foot melodies wafted from the 85-plus Brown, who looked almost as if he were standing still. LaVaughn Robinson also dances low down in his body, using his whole foot and not embellishing the rhythms with his upper body. Ingram, a young woman who also sang two numbers, did the same steps alongside him with lots of big gestures and body moves. She later tapped to a Latin beat ( " You Don’t Know What Love Is " ), incorporating big hip action and crossed legs, as if she were dancing a rumba in a nightclub.

Dianne Walker dedicated her dance to Robinson — " My Romance " — in a light, silky style. Instead of contrasting with the music, Walker’s dance blended in, like another instrument in the combo. Adrienne Hawkins gave a fond and funky tribute to Robinson, who was seated on stage. Gliding and slithering on rubber-soled platform shoes, to a jazz piano blues, she mimed an adoring fan who was trying to work up the nerve to approach her idol.

Hawkins moves large, gives out with generosity. In a way, her style is at the opposite pole from a young dancer invited up to represent the younger generation. Sean Fielder has worked with Savion Glover and adopted his look. He wears dreadlocks and oversized clothing, and he dances bent over, introverted, almost meditating on the steps. Maybe tap expressionism is the next new style.

Issue Date: May 30-June 6, 2002
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