by Deirdre Donovan

 

Savion Glover needs no introduction.  On a 5-foot by 8-foot stage at the Blue Note Jazz Club, Glover furiously tapped and tore up the boards with his famous “hitting” technique for an hour plus change.  No rangy movements were possible on the tiny raised wooden platform.  But the legendary hoofer still elicited “wows” from audience members as he articulated his rough urban footwork on stage.

 

Glover didn’t acknowledge the audience til the end of his set, which may well have been a disappointment to those fans who came hungry for morsels of his personal back-stage stories on Broadway or Off.  But can a leopard change its spots? Hardly. Glover, in fact, is well-known for his monk-like intensity during his solo performances and digging into the boards as if in search of the heart of the music.  True to form here, Glover executed his rhythm-tapping in profile, with a profound inwardness and nary a word to the audience.  Traversing the stage by facing the wings, he created a virtual symphony of tap with his flat-heeled shoes.  Dressed in a loose white shirt and baggy black pants, the rail-thin Glover cut an elegant figure, complete with his long, flying dreadlocks.

 

There was a good steady diet of tapping that included urban funk, hip-hop sequences, and jazzed-up improvisations with his house band that blurred the line between dancer and musician.  During his routines, Glover would point, in turn, to each band member, allowing them to show-off their own musical virtuosity.  He would then use their music as a point of departure for his next set, appropriating what he heard and translating it into his footwork. The result?  A synthesis of music and dance—and an altogether fresh sonic experience.

 

By midpoint of the performance, Glover’s white shirt was drenched in sweat.  He removed it and continued to tap away in his black t-shirt and baggy pants.  Yes, Glover would sometimes change the tempo and mood of his tapping during the show.  But he always remained fully ensconced in the dance itself.  What’s more, he never strayed from his urban style that is hard-hitting, piston-driven, jazz-inflected, masculine, and edged with black consciousness.

 

Okay, sometimes his percussive routines bordered on monotony.  But just when you thought that Glover had run out of a fresh idea, he would switch up his footwork and attack the boards differently—and with more gusto.

 

 

True, Glover has delivered with more razzle-dazzle on Broadway, notably when he was tapping and rapping to the hip-hop rhythms and lyrics tucked into Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk (Glover won the 1996 Tony Award for Choreography).  But if this show lacked the special effects and the hip-hop commentary that marked his Broadway performance, it offered something else:  Glover stripped-down to the essential artist.  Anybody watching Glover’s performance at the Blue Note would surely argue that he belongs in the Pantheon of the Great Tap Dancers that include Gregory Hines, Jimmy Slyde, Sammy Davis, Jr., and other greats of the tap dance world.

 

Perhaps the most revealing thing about the performance was in how the audience reacted to Glover.  Case in point:  The young woman sitting beside me shared that she had invited her Dad to the show because he had brought her to a Glover performance when she was all of 8 years-old. Yes, it was her way of acknowledging her Dad’s long-ago gesture of introducing her to a living legend.  But it also embodies what Glover himself has been committed to realizing for years: Passing down the art form of tap from one generation to the next. 

 

At the close of the show, Glover faced the audience to wish them a “Happy New Year of much power and light!”  He then added with a wink:  “Everything you want to do has already been done.  So get a new plan.”  Yes, it was a challenge to everybody in the room—and a subtle reminder that the art of yesterday, however great, is stale news.

 

Glover, now an “old man” of 43, has come a long way since he debuted at age 10 in the title role of The Tap Dance Kid. He wnet on t co-star in Jelly’s Last Jam. Since then, Glover has distinguished himself as a world-famous hoofer, actor, and choreographer.  A dancer of few words at his most recent gig at the Blue Note, he definitely put his eloquence into his dance.

 

Off Broadway

At the Blue Note Jazz Club, 131 West 3^rd Street.

From January 12 through 15.

For more information, phone 212-475-8592 or visit www.bluenotejazz.com

Running Time:  75 minutes with no intermission.