"Bare Soundz"

This is tap-dancing of the 21st century: audiences go into raptures over Savion Glover’s “Bare Soundz” wherever they turn up. This type of tap easily merges jazz and hip hop, and the three “Hooferz”, i.e. Savion Glover, Marshall Davis, jr. and Cartier A. Williams, pick up from where the likes of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly left off. Glover, who can look back on a filmography that includes appearances alongside Sammy Davis, jr. and in Spike Lee’s “Bamboozled”, and who was responsible for the choreography in “Happy Feet”, has already made two US American president’s hearts beat faster – including their “court”.

This hoofer does without an orchestra and canned music. The electronically amplified sound of the sole is more than enough to lend his tap compositions a virtuoso volume. In the 90 minutes of their performance, the tap dancers create a musical fortissimo minimalism and a diabolical, complex differentiation that is beyond comparison, with acts like “Swing In”, “B Bop Bird”, “Blue Afros” and “Groove D Hines”.
With his muscular phrasing, speed and kinetic power, Glover comes very close to matching John Coltrane’s labyrinthine sax odysseys and, naturally, Gregory Hines, the artistic link between the good old big band tap dancers and the new generation of hip hop hoofers.


Special: Join Savion Glover's tap-workshop at ImPulsTanz 2009