It has been a longtime goal of Vancouver International Tap Festival producer Sas Selfjord to bring Broadway legend Ted Louis Levy to the local stage. This festival, she finally got her wish.
The tap master – who first made his name in the smash 1989 musical revue Black and Blue, which celebrated the black culture of dance and music in Paris between First World War and Second World War; and followed that up as a choreographic collaborator on the Tony Award-nominated musical Jelly’s Last Jam and Tony Award-winning hit Bring In ‘Da Noise! Bring In ‘Da Funk!; as well as an appearance in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X– will be making not one but three appearances at VITF.
The first and main event is in performance with the likes of Billy Siegenfeld (Jump Rhythm Jazz Project), Terry Brock (Vancouver Tap Society), Irish dancer Joel Hanna, and Toronto’s Andrew Prashad in Tap Masters (Sept. 3 at the Norman Rothstein Theatre); the second is a nine-hour advanced teaching residency on swinging and singing; and the third is with “Ted Talks” – an opportunity opening night (Sept. 1) to hear personal highlights and lessons from his legendary career as he talks tap with festival headliner Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards.
We caught up with the gregarious Emmy Award winner by phone in New York to get a taste of where the conversation might go on Thursday.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Tell me about the first time you ever took a dance class. Did you connect with dance right away?
I think so. It wasn’t dance; it was tap. It was absolutely when I got my first pair of tap shoes. And it was my teacher.
My teacher, Shirley Hall Bass, had this energy about her that was infectious. She was very, very motivating. And very, very careful about how she introduced you to it. And it was really something, because inside of her teaching was just so much.
The first song I ever danced to was Count Basie’s song, “Roll ‘Em Pete” [sings a verse]. “Roll ‘Em Pete” was the name of the song and it was about a girl! [Laughs] So, you know, being a 14-year-old boy in Chicago on the South Side – there’s two things they think about: sports and girls. And for me it was tap dancing and girls. And the minute I put the shoes on, Miss Shirley Hall Bass had a way of giving you information and giving you confidence at the same time that this is what you’re supposed to be doing. Her confidence was transferred to you.
When you teach now, do you impart any of the techniques that she used with you?
Well you know what… One of the things that we lack in tap dance right now is a technical perspective on the dance. A common technique base. When I took ballet in Hawaii while I was in the Navy, I learned the levels of ascension. A beginners’ class was defined by a technique base in ballet. You went to intermediate after you learned those technical aspects of ballet. And that is a common standard throughout the ballet world. We don’t have that base in America. We don’t have that [in tap].
And I deal with all levels of dance, even professionals at this point, and their execution is one thing, their presentation is another, and how they navigate the challenges of live performance is entirely another. Improvisation I stay completely away from, but I think for [today’s dancers] like Jason Samuels Smith, Sarah Reich, Anissa Lee, Dormeshia, Savion Glover, Stephanie Cadman, these are people that I believe are astute enough in their technical ability and musical ability and confident in their personal development to express it, or even challenge themselves in the space of improvisation.
But you don’t?
Well, no. I’m not an improvisationalist. I’m always a student. I’m still learning the stuff that Finis Henderson II and Shirley Hall Bass taught me! I’m still remembering that! [Laughs] And usually when I teach a class, I teach a class to help myself remember what they have taught me. So yes, I do teach what Shirley has taught me, but I could never be the teacher she was.
The information she gave us was amazing. I am still using it today, but I use it on many different levels, because when I started tap dancing, it wasn’t just a tap dance school: I learned how to sing, I learned how to tap dance, I learned gymnastics, we had vocal class, we had acting coaching, and we didn’t do your regular recital.
Shirley Hall Bass would take American classics, such as Peter Pan, and she would change it and give it an urban twist, in the way of My Man Pan. When we did Peter Pan, My Man Pan was just too funny for us. And we took urban music and put it in, but the script was pretty much the same. She helped us use music we were familiar with to perform with it, whether it was a shim sham or whether we were learning leans or “fall off the logs and over the top”.
Whatever level you were, she found a piece of music that you could relate to that energized and helped you take on challenges with as much fervour as possible.
Why do you think tap hasn’t developed the same structure as ballet?
Well, because it was born differently. Right now, the world is tap dancing. And they really tap dancing! [Laughs] And it’s amazing. You go on the Internet and all you can do is smile, because these crazy people with these metal plates on the bottoms of their feet are just going for it, man. And the joy and sincerity and power and grace…
I think the developmental process of tap dance, though, is different from other dance forms. Because – unless you’re talking about flamenco, because flamenco was [also] born out of a sense of struggle – tap dance was born out of a necessity for freedom in America.
This is not something I made up. When we were doing Black and Blue on Broadway, I would sit with Bunny Briggs and George Hillman, and these are all mistrel and vaudeville dancers. Sammy Davis Jr. was a minstrel – he was the connection between minstrelsy and vaudeville.
And minstrelsy was born out of a necessity for freedom. First of all, with black face and black tap – white performers were putting on black face but black performers would do it as well in order to find their way north. The troupes would find their way north to freedom, and this is what Bunny Briggs said.
Tap dance grew up with the blues, the call and response that came from the chants in the cotton fields that the slaves would sing to each other and send each other messages for freedom. Or the path to freedom would transfer to the call and response between dancers.
It’s also an African tradition, but it was a way of communicating information through a language we had of our own.
• Ted Louis Levy appears in conversation and performance at the Vancouver International Tap Festival, running Sept. 1-4. Tickets and info at VanTapDance.com
