His feet do the talking
There is a galvanic moment in the new Broadway musical “Shuff le Along” when Audra McDonald, playing actress Lottie Gee, is trying to goose a new song, “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” with a propulsive beat. Her inspiration? The construction in the dreary hall where the all-black company is rehearsing. Gee starts beating out a percussive syncopation as a young chorus dancer thrillingly taps out the complex counts.
What you hear is the sound of something being born that never existed before, says choreographer Savion Glover, who joined forces with director-librettist George C. Wolfe to reclaim a revolutionary show from obscurity.
Their show, whose full title is “Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed,” tells the story of the first production to feature an all-black creative team and to play to mixed audiences during its smash Broadway run in 1921. Wolfe and Glover had teamed in 1996 for “Bring in ’da Noise, Bring in ’da Funk,” the hip-hop and rap musical revue retracing black history, which won Glover a Tony Award for his wildly innovative choreography.
He is up for the same Tony for “Shuffle Along,” which earned 10 nominations, including one for best musical. Sitting in the lobby of the Music Box Theatre in New York, where “Shuffle Along” is in residence, Glover, 42, humbly spoke of being the anointed heir of a tap dance tradition. For this edited conversation, he also discussed the “cosmic consciousness” that will dominate when he performs in concert with Jack DeJohnette on May 26 at the Valley Performing Arts Center in Northridge.
In tap rehearsals for “Shuffle Along,” Audra McDonald, Brian Stokes Mitchell and Brandon Victor Dixon were really sweating out your routines. No mercy?
Not only was I excited to teach them, but they were enthusiastic about wanting to do it. I always used to say, “Things can be simplified.” But they didn’t want the simplified version. They pushed and pushed and pushed. As a tap dancer, I appreciated that. As a choreographer, my level of respect for them grew and grew and grew.
What was key in rehearsals?
You gotta listen; you gotta try to feel it out. It’s not something that you “perform.” It’s something that you have to really think about in terms of its interpretation. I could give them the vocabulary, but the interpretation is theirs.
Black sexuality had been seen as such a threat. The original “Shuffle Along” was the first show to demonstrate romance between black characters. How did you choreograph that? How did you come up with the number that expresses the rivalry that developed after the original “Shuffle Along” creative team split in acrimony? You mean the tap challenges in Harlem clubs? Were you challenged?
Oh, yeah. In my very aggressive years as a young man from Newark, I would have different labels on the bottom of my tap shoes: “Yo Mama” on one, “Killer” on another. I went through a period when you had to be ready to, what we used to call, “cut ’em.” You had to have a cut step so that when you were done with what you were doing, nobody had a chance. Some people would actually leave in tears.
Did you ever challenge one of your mentors, like Gregory Hines?
No. I came up in a time when you didn’t even look in the direction of certain people. Who would think about challenging Jimmy Slyde? ... That’d be like LeBron James challenging Michael Jordan, or Shaq trying to challenge Kareem-Abdul Jabbar. You just don’t do that.
What were you most eager to learn from your mentors?
about their art. That’s what made my relationships with them so significant. It was father to son, especially when there was no male in [my] house. Dancing was secondary. A lot of lessons were learned at dinner versus the studio.
What lessons? Where are you now versus where you were?
When I was in my teens, my dance was very aggressive: hard, edgy, just rough. Not really caring about an audience. As I got more mature, my dance became more spiritual. Now I am exploring the realm of cosmic consciousness.
Is that what you intend to do with DeJohnette in Northridge?
Definitely. Jack plays drums and piano, and he’s an extraordinary man and musician. I didn’t know it then, but my time with those cats [mentors] was all about exploration.
What does the term “hoofer” mean to you?
I’m glad you asked me. The Hoofers were a group of men. Period. Now, the word “hoofer” has become a pro tap dancer. It’s wrong, very wrong. You have kids in Wichita from the Sally Dinkle Tap School calling themselves hoofers, and they have no idea who Lon Chaney is or George Hillman or Buster Brown. I don’t care how many lyrics to John Lennon songs you know, you’re not a Beatle!
Do you consider yourself a Hoofer?
A poignant aspect of “Shuffle Along” is the desire to save these artists of the past from oblivion.
There were times when I would stop in rehearsal, look to the sky and say, “Give me something.” I’m very appreciative of their contribution and knowing they gave us the gift. They invented it. It didn’t exist before. They created it out of nothing. I love making sure their stories are being told.