Entertainment

Film Review: ‘Tap World’

Published

9 years ago

July 9, 2015

Oakland Post

Chloe Arnold and friends in the dance documentary “Tap World.”

By Dwight Brown
NNPA Film Critic

At one point in this sweet gem of a documentary, two tap dancers from different parts of the world define the joy and philosophy of tap dancing: “Dance to express, not to impress,” says Chloe Arnold of the U.S. “I dance, therefore I am,” states Arthur Benhamou of Paris. Those basic acknowledgments are probably why tap dancing, which one might assume is strictly an American phenomenon, is so loved around the world and a thriving, inspiring performing art.

The roots of tap dancing can be traced to Irish dancing and Juba dance. The latter was originally from West Africa and transformed into a plantation dance, which used the tap sounds as codes. Strains of the dance came from the Caribbean and the Southern United States, eventually evolving into the traditional Broadway tap, seen in musicals, and the more improvised Rhythm (Jazz) tap, which like jazz music is more fluid.

We often think of sports as a vehicle for young people who need a focus that will propel them forward. This highly enlightening film showcases dancers from nine to 91, who use tap as a means of expression, a driving force, and are welcomed into a nurturing community. In New York’s Hell’s Kitchen, long before it became gentrified, Jason Samuels Smith lived with his single mom in a five-floor walkup apartment with two rooms that were always filled with more than two people. He had no father figure, until he gravitated to some older men in the neighborhood who taught him how to tap dance and be a man.

Joshua Johnson grew up in the projects in Harlem and witnessed a peer getting shot and dying. He moved out of his broken home when he finished high school. Then, he couch-surfed, kept his possessions in a storage locker and relied on tap dancing as a source of income. He tap danced in subway cars for loose change, and his courage and determination landed him a piece in the New York Times, an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and tuition for Penn State University.

Vickie Riordan, a single mother, started a tap dance class in Harrisburg, Pa., which attracted a lot of women who were dealing with domestic issues. Her son helped her market her class, which turned into the America’s largest adults-only tap group with 500 women and men, students who she calls Tap Pups.

Tap dancing kids from fevelas in Brazil, a tapping troupe in Taiwan, a soloist who performs on the streets in Paris, urban tappers in Tokyo – they all follow the same pattern. Tap dancing, self-discovery, determination and exhilaration.

Executive producer/director Dean Hargrove started with a short film called Tap Heat, which paralleled two tap dancers, one traditional and one a street stylist, who melded the two styles to enhance the art form. Tap World, an extension of that effort, uses footage from all over the globe, which focuses on the community of tap dancers. Interviews with dance historian Constance Valis Hill add gravitas. The technical aspects – editing, cinematography – are fine and don’t block the spirit of the artists who lift this film up with their performances and anecdotes. Though it is great to see these unknown disciples of tap, it seems odd that the legacy bearer of Rhythm tap, Savion Glover, who passes on a tradition that goes back a generation to Gregory Hines and further back than him, is not present or even the narrator.

It’s hard not to smile when a young tap dancer, who loses a leg to cancer, gets a peg leg and continues doing what he loves because he can follow in the footsteps of physically challenged dancers such as the legendary Peg Leg Bates. And it’s touching when African American dancer Chloe Arnold heads to Japan to perform with dancers in Tokyo; there is not culture clash, it’s a mesh of cultures.

You wouldn’t have known that tap dancing is as international as Coca Cola, until you saw this thoroughly heartwarming film.

Visit NNPA Film Critic Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com.

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Oakland Post: Week of April 17 – 23, 2024

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 17 – 23, 2024

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15 hours ago

April 19, 2024

Oakland Post

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Entertainment

O.J. Simpson, 76, Dies of Prostate Cancer

Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson, who rose to fame as a college football player who went on to the NFL and parlayed his talents in acting and sportscasting, succumbed to prostate cancer on April 10, his family announced.

Published

2 days ago

April 17, 2024

Oakland Post

Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson. Wikipedia photo

By Post Staff

Born and raised in San Francisco, the Galileo High School graduate was recruited by the University of Southern California after he was on a winning Junior College All-American team.

At USC, he gained wide acclaim as a running back leading to him becoming the No. 1 pick in the AFL-NFL draft in 1969 and joining the Buffalo Bills, where he had demanded – and received — the largest contract in professional sports history: $650,000 over five years. In 1978, the Bills traded Simpson to his hometown team, the San Francisco 49ers, retiring from the game in 1979.

Simpson’s acting career had begun before his pro football career with small parts in 1960s TV (“Dragnet”) before “Roots” and film (“The Klansman,” “The Towering Inferno,” Capricorn One”).

He was also a commentator for “Monday Night Football,” and “The NFL on NBC,” and in the mid-1970s Simpson’s good looks and amiability made him, according to People magazine, “the first b\Black athlete to become a bona fide lovable media superstar.”

The Hertz rent-a-car commercials raised his recognition factor while raising Hertz’s profit by than 50%, making him critical to the company’s bottom line.

It could be said that even more than his success as a football star, the commercials of his running through airports endeared him to the Black community at a time when it was still unusual for a Black person to represent a national, mainstream company.

He remained on Hertz team into the 1990s while also getting income endorsing Pioneer Chicken, Honey Baked Ham and Calistoga water company products and running O.J. Simpson Enterprises, which owned hotels and restaurants.

He married childhood sweetheart Marguerite Whitley when he was 19 and became the father of three children. Before he divorced in 1979, he met waitress and beauty queen Nicole Brown, who he would marry in 1985. A stormy relationship before, during and after their marriage ended, it would lead to a highway car chase as police sought to arrest Simpson for the murder by stabbing of Brown and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994.

The pursuit, arrest, and trial of Simpson were among the most widely publicized events in American history, Wikipedia reported.

Characterized as the “Trial of the Century,” he was acquitted by a jury in 1995 but found liable in the amount of $33 million in a civil action filed by the victims’ families three years later.

Simpson would be ensnared in the criminal justice system 12 years later when he was arrested after forcing his way into a Las Vegas hotel room to recover sports memorabilia he believed belonged to him.

In 2008, he received a sentence of 33 years and was paroled nine years later in 2017.

When his death was announced, Simpson’s accomplishments and downfalls were acknowledged.

Sports analyst Christine Brennan said: “… Even if you didn’t love football, you knew O.J. because of his ability to transcend sports and of course become the businessman and the pitchman that he was.

“And then the trial, and the civil trial, the civil case he lost, and the fall from grace that was extraordinary and well-deserved, absolutely self-induced, and a man that would never be seen the same again,” she added.

“OJ Simpson played an important role in exposing the racial divisions in America,” attorney Alan Dershowitz, an adviser on Simpson’s legal “dream team” told the Associated Press by telephone. “His trial also exposed police corruption among some officials in the Los Angeles Police Department. He will leave a mixed legacy. Great athlete. Many people think he was guilty. Some think he was innocent.”

“Cookie and I are praying for O.J. Simpson’s children … and his grandchildren following his passing. I know this is a difficult time,” Magic Johnson said on X.

“I feel that the system failed Nicole Brown Simpson and failed battered women everywhere,” attorney Gloria Allred, who once represented Nicole’s family, told ABC News. “I don’t mourn for O.J. Simpson. I do mourn for Nicole Brown Simpson and her family, and they should be remembered.”

Simpson was diagnosed with prostate cancer about a year ago and was undergoing chemotherapy treatment, according to Pro Football Hall of Fame President Jim Porter. He died in his Las Vegas, Nevada, home with his family at his side.

He is survived by four children: Arnelle and Jason from his first marriage and Sydney and Justin from his second marriage. He was predeceased son, Aaren, who drowned in a family swimming pool in 1979.

Sources for this report include Wikipedia, ABC News, Associated Press, and X.