Dueling Tappers
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What bothers Alexander is that almost no Chicago tappers–not even himself–are included on the bill. “Almost all the money going into this festival is going back to New York and it’s making those of us in the Chicago tap community look really bad,” he says. With the exception of Sarah Petronio, who is a tap instructor at the Dance Center and also the Chicago on Tap curator, all the other featured artists in the celebration are based in other cities. These include: Savion Glover, a young tap dancer who starred in the Broadway productions of The Tap Dance Kid and Jelly’s Last Jam; Jimmy Slyde, considered by some to be the greatest living jazz tap artist and a Tony Award-nominee for his role in the Broadway production of Black and Blue; Ted Levy, a Tony Award nominee for his choreography of the Broadway production of Jelly’s Last Jam; and Van Porter, a featured dancer in Black and Blue who appeared in the movie Tap. Sarah Petronio’s daughter Leela also is listed as a featured artist. Alexander maintains that local tappers were pushed aside to spotlight more salable talent from other parts of the country.
The producers concede one of their principal concerns in putting together the festival was generating ticket revenue. Explains Old Town School executive director Jim Hirsch: “We needed to bring in stuff that will make people want to buy tickets.” In this instance that apparently came to mean out-of-town talent. But according to everyone interviewed for this article, in the early planning stages there was considerably more talk about Chicago tap talent playing a significant role in the festival.
So Chicago on Tap will have no performance spotlighting Chicago tap talent except for Petronio. Alexander is going ahead with his legal action and mounting a last-minute version of a festival he has produced annually for the last three years called the Human Rhythm Project. It runs July 11 through 16 and will include master classes at the Chicago Studio for Dance and Musical Theater and two tap performances on July 15 and 16 at the Harold Washington Library. Needless to say, Alexander’s festival prominently features Chicago talent, including his company, Especially Tap Company, Steppin’ Out, Gus Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago, and Idella Reed, as well as several guest artists.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Marc PoKempner.
