Savion Glover's "Dance Space' at Academy of Music

Tap dance is actually pretty simple. There are four basic elements: two toes, two heels. Anyone can master a decent "paddle" (heel/toe, alternating feet) with a few lessons. After that, it's a matter of learning steps—putting down and picking up those toes and heels in different orders, with your feet moving in, out, forward, back, creating different rhythms and emphases, and stringing the steps together into combinations. And, of course, increasing speed while maintaining control and clarity of sound.

Of course, it's not quite that simple. You have to muscle-train your feet to do these movements and combinations on their own, because thinking about what you're doing will slow you down. Muscle memory comes only with practice— lots of practice—as do speed and control.

I speak here with the voice of experience. I took up tap as an adult and landed in an advanced class after only a few years of weekly lessons, despite my complete and utter lack of natural aptitude.

Though I no longer take lessons, I still know enough to recognize good tap when I see/hear it. Savion Glover is the best-known contemporary tap dancer as well as the best qualitatively: no one can touch his technique.

His control is truly phenomenal, especially given the rhythmic complexity of his improvisation. Every single sound he makes is exactly the sound he intends. His tone is never muddy, and his speed is blazing.

My old teacher

Although I've seen Glover perform on film and TV, I had never seen him live, so I leaped at the chance when it was announced that the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts had commissioned a new piece from him. Rather than waste my extra ticket on a civilian, I invited my old tap teacher to accompany me to the Academy of Music for the world premiere. We settled into our seats in the middle of the tenth row with delighted anticipation.

After a seriously random opening act—"I Am," a creation narrative combining spirituals and spoken word elements—and a ten-minute pause, some electronic music started, bright lights flashed in our eyes, and the curtain rose. A tall platform stretched fully across the dark stage. Twinkling lights covered the front of the platform and the entire background.

A couple of pieces of equipment stood on the platform. And, oh yes, a black-clad figure—Glover, who began to tap. Which he did, non-stop, for the next hour.

The visuals were, at best, minimal. The stage lighting remained subdued throughout, and because the platform was well above the stage floor, the angle was such that no one in the front half of the orchestra could see Glover's feet— those feet we'd all come to watch.

The music was some sort of ambient/techno/electronic something or other, neither recognizable nor memorable. The last 20 minutes contained some spoken word elements as well, with the voices of Glover, Gregory Hines, and others in snippets of remarks about rhythm and creativity.

In other words, virtually nothing happened for about an hour except for Glover's tapping.

Hypnotic effect

Nonetheless, I was enthralled. It all came down to sound and rhythm, which ebbed and flowed in immensely complex patterns. The effect was hypnotic—deprived of the visual element, I was able to get much further into the sound. It felt like I was actually in Glover's brain—a fascinating place to be.

Not everyone shared my absorption. A fairly steady stream of audience members stood up and left. At least some of them, we learned after the show, were frustrated by their inability to see past the lip of the platform and so had moved up to the family circle to get a full-figure view.

But knowledgeable tap aficionados also expressed mixed reactions after the show. Many who had seen Glover perform before—in some cases ten or 20 times—found the performance solipsistic and self-indulgent, with no reference to any meaning outside of himself, and no recognition that anyone but he had anything to contribute to the art.

In this milieu I felt unusually fortunate. On the one hand, I'm sufficiently savvy to appreciate Glover's level of virtuosity. On the other hand, I'm not too familiar with Glover's live work to harbor excessive expectations about what he would, could or should do. That sweet spot represents a pretty small subset of the potential audience, so I don't expect Dance Space to take on a significant life as a performance piece.

But if it does—please, Savion, figure out the sight lines involved with the raised platform. People paid a fair amount of money to watch you dance. They deserved to be able to see your feet.