savion glover:The sanctity of movement
June 21, 2023 | by Rusty Aceves
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Savion Glover performing at SFJAZZ with Jack DeJohnette, 2018 (photo by Scott Chernis)
The Tony-winning phenomenon Savion Glover is “the greatest tap virtuoso of our time, perhaps of all time” (The New Yorker). He makes a welcome return to Miner Auditorium to kick off Summer Sessions 2023 with a set of four concerts. Here’s portrait of the artist to get you ready for the shows.
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For the first two nights of his residency, Savion Glover presents his new project SoUNDz’ SaCRoSaNcT — a heartfelt tribute to his mentor, friend, and teacher, the legendary Gregory Hines, as well as the legacy of “the hoofers” — pioneering dancers who advanced and popularized the art form in the 1920s and 1930s. The second two nights honor the music and spirit of Afro-Futurist pioneer and avant-garde giant Sun Ra and his Arkestra, focused on meditative sound and dance intended to take the audience on an interstellar journey into Sun Ra’s heliocentric worlds. It seems only correct that an artist whose work redefined and contemporized the nature of his artform would honor vastly influential artistic figures who did the same in their time.
Beginning as a prodigious student of the great Honi Coles and the late Gregory Hines, who called him “possibly the best tap dancer that ever lived,” Glover has been boldly breaking new ground for over a quarter century.
The astonishingly talented Newark, New Jersey native was only 11 when he made his Broadway debut as the title character in 1984’s The Tap Dance Kid and received his first Tony nomination at 15 for his work in Melvin Howard’s Black and Blue in 1989 — the same year he appeared alongside Hines and Sammy Davis Jr. in director Nick Castle’s Tap. The film is an inspiring love letter to the artform featuring one of Davis Jr.’s final screen appearances and paired Hines and the young Glover’s explosive rhythmic power with cameos by veteran hoofers Bunny Briggs, Arthur Duncan, Howard “Sandman” Sims, Jimmy Slyde, and Harold Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers.
By the turn of the 1990s Glover was moving freely between the stage and screen, appearing in Hines’ PBS special Gregory Hines’ Tap Dance in America and over 40 episodes of the iconic children’s series Sesame Street, and receiving a 1992 Drama Desk nomination for his performance alongside Hines in director and playwright George C. Wolfe’s Jelly’s Last Jam on Broadway. Glover built on the momentum from this award-winning celebration of Jelly Roll Morton, becoming a cultural phenomenon at 23 when he co-conceived and starred in Wolfe’s wildly successful 1996 musical Bring in ‘Da Noise/Bring in ‘Da Funk — a landmark production tracing the history of Black life in America through tap that earned Glover a Tony Award for Best Choreography.In his review, The New York Times’ Ben Brantley wrote, “Mr. Glover has found choreographic equivalents for the black experience in the days of plantations, urban industrialization, the Harlem Renaissance and latter-day race riots…This sense of flaming individuality is finally what the evening is about: not just the collective history of a race but the diverse and specific forms of expression that one tradition embraces.” Bring in ‘Da Noise/Bring in ‘Da Funk ran for three years at Broadway’s historic Ambassador Theatre, totaling 1,130 performances.
In 2000, Glover published his well-regarded memoir Savion! My Life in Tap and was cast as a main character in director Spike Lee’s satirical comedy Bamboozled, which imagines a network executive reviving the minstrel show tradition for television and its surprising success. The film features Damon Wayans and Jada Pinkett Smith along with an original score by incoming SFJAZZ Executive Artistic Director Terence Blanchard.
Glover’s final collaboration with Hines, 2001’s Bojangles, is a biography of actor and tap innovator Bill “Bojangles” Robinson with Hines in the title role, and like Bamboozled, includes an original score by Terence Blanchard. Hines received an NAACP Image Award for his performance and died of liver cancer in 2003.
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Since then, Glover has remained a steady presence in popular culture, originating multiple original shows, working with Barbra Streisand, creating the choreography for George Miller’s smash animated film Happy Feet, and receiving both a 2016 Drama Desk Award and Tony Award nomination for his work on George Wolff’s Shuffle Along.
Glover has appeared on SFJAZZ stages ten times beginning with Jazz Tap Summit II in 1990 that featured Honi Coles, the Nicholas Brothers, Bunny Briggs, Howard “Sandman” Sims, Steve Condos, Eddie Brown, and others. In 2015 he performed the part originated by Briggs on Duke Ellington’s “David Danced Before the Lord With All His Might” during the 50th Anniversary celebration of Ellington’s Concert of Sacred Music at Grace Cathedral, and presented a set of spellbinding duet concerts with drummers Jack DeJohnette and Marcus Gilmore in 2018.
Savion Glover performing at Grace Cathedral with vocalist Kurt Elling and saxophonist Miguel Zenón during the 50th Anniversary of Duke Ellington’s Concert of Sacred Music, 9/17/15 (photo by Ronald Davis)
There are precious few artists who embody, redefine, and radically expand their art form, but Glover stands tall as an elemental creative force who has returned tap to its roots while opening vast expanses for fresh exploration. In the words of the late Gregory Hines, “Savion Glover has revolutionized tap dancing. It can never be the same. He has changed dance because he has made it a contemporary thing. He has made it hip. He has tap dancers feeling comfortable and feeling it is their right to tap dance to their music. To funk music. To rap music. To hip-hop music. Savion has made it hip to tap dance. And that’s what we need.”
Savion Glover performs four shows to open SFJAZZ Summer Sessions 2023 (7/13-16). On July 13 and 14 he presents SoUNDz’ SaCRoSaNcT, a tribute to his mentor Gregory Hines and the Hoofers who pioneered the artform in the 20th century. July 15 and 16 brings In Touch with Sun Ra, Glover’s salute to the Afro-Futurism pioneer, bandleader, pianist, and composer. Tickets are available here.
Source: https://t-tees.com
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