| Edition |
First edition. |
| Description |
vi, 612 pages ; 24 cm |
| Contents |
Opening act -- PART I: FIRST STEPS -- Stealing steps -- Original steps -- Imitation dance -- Dancing Juba for eels -- The American clog -- PART II: EVERYBODY'S DOING IT NOW -- Big time -- The practical art of stage dancing -- It's getting dark on Old Broadway -- Interlude: the color line -- PART III: AMERICA'S NATURAL WAY OF DANCING -- Rhythm for sale -- How to hoof in Hollywood -- Before the fall -- PART IV: OUT OF STEP -- The break -- Continuation -- PART V: PUTTING THE SHOES BACK ON -- Revival -- Renaissance -- Lineage -- Choreography and the company model -- Black and blue on Broadway -- Young again -- PART VI: AN AMERICAN TRADITION, A GLOBAL ART -- Danse à claquettes -- Where's the dance? |
| Note |
Includes index. |
| Summary |
"The first authoritative history of tap dancing, one of the great art forms--along with jazz and musical comedy--created in America Most dance arises from an interaction between music and movement. Tap is both dancing to music and dancing as music. We don't just watch it; we hear its rhythms and feel them in our muscles and bones. Like jazz, tap was born in the United States. It's a hybrid of traditional African dances brought over by slaves and jig, clog, and other folk-dance forms from the British Isles. Brian Seibert's magisterial history illuminates tap's complex origins and its theatricalization in blackface minstrelsy. He charts tap's growth in the vaudeville circuits and nightclubs of the early twentieth century, chronicles its spread to ubiquity on Broadway and in Hollywood, analyzes its post-World War II decline, and celebrates its reinvention by new generations of American and international performers. It is a story with a huge cast of characters, from Master Juba (whose performance Charles Dickens described) through Bill Robinson and Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, to Gregory Hines and Savion Glover. Seibert traces the stylistic development of tap while guiding us through the often surprising history of cultural exchange between black and white over centuries. What the Eye Hears is a central account of American popular culture, as well as the saga of African Americans in show business, wielding enormous influence as they grapple with the pain and pride of a complicated legacy"-- Provided by publisher. |
|
"The first authoritative history of tap-dancing one of the great art forms originated in America"-- Provided by publisher. |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 541-574) and index. |
| Subject |
Tap dancing -- History.
|
|
PERFORMING ARTS / Dance / Tap.
|
|
HISTORY / United States / General.
|
|
Tap dancing. (OCoLC)fst01142971
|
| Genre/Form |
History. (OCoLC)fst01411628
|
| ISBN |
9780865479531 (hardback) |
|
0865479534 (hardback) |
|
9781429947619 (e-book) |
| Standard No. |
40025521497 |
|
