- Description
Tap Dance America is a reference work of bibliographic information and does not point to digitized versions of the items described. The Library of Congress may or may not own a copy of a particular film or video. To request additional information Ask a Librarian.
See Also:
- Dianne "Lady Di" Walker (biography)
- Lon Chaney (biography)
- Henry LeTang (biography)
- Charles "Cholly" Atkins (biography)
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Black and Blue Revue / Fayard Nicholas [theatrical performance]
- Title
- Black and Blue Revue [Theatrical Performance]
- Performers
- Nicholas, Fayard
- Atkins, Charles "Cholly"
- LeTang, Henry
- Chaney, Lon
- Walker, Dianne
- Manners, Bernard
- Published/Created
- 1989-01-26
- Genre
- Theatrical Performance
- Venue
- Minskoff Theater
- Abstract
- Through January 20, 1991
Original Broadway Production included tap dancers: Bunny Briggs, Ralph Brown, Lon Chaney, Rashamella Cumbo, Eugene Fleming, Tanya Gibson, Cyd Glover, Savion Glover, Germaine Goodson, Angela Hall, Kyme, Ted Levy, Valerie Macklin, Bernard Manners, Deborah Mitchell, Van Porter, Kevin Ramsay, Ken Roberson, Jimmy Slyde, Valerie Smith, Dormeshia Sumbry, Dianne Walker, Melvin Washington. with Tarik Winston as understudy.
Bunny Briggs and Savion Glover 1989 Tony Award Nomination for Best Actor in a Featured Role (Musical)
Ruth Brown, 1989 Tony Award Best Actress in a Musical
Cholly Atkins, Henry LeTang, Frankie Manning and Fayard Nicholas, 1989 Tony Award Best Choreography
Claudio Segovia and Hector Orezzoli, Tony Award Nomination Best Direction Musical
Black and Blue Tony Nomination for Best Musical
Short subject film on videocassette, archived at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Entire production conceived and directed by Claudio Segovia and Hector Orezzoli. Choreography: Cholly Atkins, Henry Le Tang, Frankie Manning, Fayard Nicholas. Assistant choreographer: Dianne Walker. Music: Various. Musical supervision, arrangements and orchestrations: Sy Johnson. Singers: Ruth Brown, Linda Hopkins, Carrie Smith. Hoofers: Bunny Briggs, Ralph Brown, Lon Chaney, Jimmy Slyde, Dianne Walker. Dancers: Rashamella Cumbo, Tanya Bigson, Germaine Goodson, Angela Hall, Kyme, Valerie Macklin, Deborah Mitchell, Valerie E. Smith, Frederick J. Boothe, Edward Campbell IV, Eugene Fleming, Ted Levy, Bernard Manners, Van Porter, Kevin Ramsey, Ken Robertson, Melvin Washington. Younger generation: Cyd Glover, Savion Glover, Dormeshia Sumbry.
Dance numbers include: "Hoofers a capella" "Everybody Loves My Baby" (chor: LeTang), ---- "After You've Gone" (chor: Atkins), sung by Hopkins, ---- "I Want a Big Butter and Egg Man" (chor. Nicholas) sung by Smith --- "Rhythm Is Our Business" (chor: Le Tang) --- "Mystery Song" --- "Stompin' at the Savoy" perf. by Slyde --- "Black and Tan Fantasy" (chor. Manning), perf by Briggs and the Dancers -- "That Rhythm Man" --- "Swingin'" to "Wednesday Night Hop" (chor. Manning) -- "Memories of You" (chor. Atkins) -- "I'm Confessing" (chor. Atkins) --- "East St. Louis Toodle-oo" perf. by Brown and Chaney -- "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" (chor. LeTang) -- "Black and Blue" --- "Finale"
Wrote Constance Valis Hill for Attitude: Black are the crooners, hoofers, jazzmen; blues is the music, and tap is the dance they celebrate. Sassy, sexy and spiritual, the blues made it to Broadway--no mean miracle given its humble origins. And with dance numbers that outweigh the songs two to one, the success secret of Black and Blue is its tribute to the inexhaustible fervor of the jazz tap dance. The spice of tap is its variety. No two steps sound or even look alike, and if tap's good, it chatters to the gods. Ralph Brown starts with a simple time step slyly embellished with triplets in the opening dance number, Hoofers A Capella. Then Ted Levy picks it up, adds a string of riffs, and trades it to Savion Glover who lightens the sound through a scurry of quick leaps. Perching like an adolescent angel on the head of a pin, Savion executes tap's version of ballet-en-pointe. He passes the sound to Jimmy Slyde, who slips and spins tap's version of the classic chaine turn. Even Lon Chaney's steady four-square paddle and rolls get transformed by Bernard Manners into a saucy cubanola. God made two kinds of stylists. One stays high and light on their toes like ballerinas, briefly descending to accent a phrase with the heels. The other uses the whole foot. Like modern dancers, they root the feet into the earth, extracting deeper sounds. Black and Blue's veterans Bunny Briggs, Chaney, Slyde and even young Glover are these kinds of hoofers, while all the choreographers work in the lightweight style. The most tapperly of the group was Cholly Atkins, the other half of the classy Coles and Atkins team. Master of the soft-shoe, his rhythms are melodic and meticulous. "Memories of You" danced with deceptive nonchalance by Dianne Walker and a pair of sleek henchmen, was a study in delicate sound. Walker is a poised, mature dancer, more than able to hold her own with any male. Sweet sonorities are typed out from her feet as she clipped out paragraphs of sound. The quiet, strolling rhythms of "Memories" need to be backed by a whispering jazz, heard in an intimate club but here the orchestra competes for attention with the sordid costumes. The men's broad-striped trousers and Walker's panier-shaped shirt were a gaudy distraction. Still, the audience sat in silent rapture of the visual and aural ripplings.
In contrast to Atkins' impressionistic style, Henry LeTang is loud and showy. No need to listen carefully because if you don't hear it the first time he'll be sure to repeat it again and again. LeTang is determined that you get it in "Everybody Loves You, Baby" as he strings a chorus of red-sequined bodies through a Busby Berkeley collage of circles but with the simple struts and cross-turns, he numbs syncopation. The upper body competes with and finally overpowers the feet. So what became most effective were the performing panels that drop down to reveal the dancers' feet. Then and only then can the red and black patents solo to satisfaction. Fayard Nicholas' "I Want a Big Butter and Egg Man" recalled the rhythmic and acrobatic brilliance of the Nicholas Brothers and was full of startling surprises. A dapper trio of gents in plain trousers execute a sprightly galliard, their phrases pleasantly punctuated with little skips and hops that bob in place. Wrists circle in baroque elegance. A gentleman's bow suddenly dips into a split, legs splayed, they spring back into beautiful form and finish the bar with a wink. Social dance is the source of Frankie Manning's Black and Tan Fantasy, Ellington's classic embodying the Susi-Q, Shorty George, scarecrow stances and bumps and grinds. Although the feet are minus metal taps, jazz rhythms emanate from deep inside the chest and flow into the limbs. Manning was one of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers from the thirties and danced wild at the Savoy so the steps ooze authenticity, but lack theatricality and forms look shrunk. Needed is the speed of a Pepsi Bethel, or the balletic-jazz sensibility of an Alvin Ailey. In "In a Sentimental Mood" Bunny Briggs fits best on the Broadway stage with open and loose body styling that emanates the integrity of jazz tap inside and out. Turning his big eyes heavenward, he plays with the rhythms in his feet, chattering with the angels. He glides across the floor like God walking on water. His dancing is spiritual ascent that finds salvation in the blues. With bittersweet lyrics sung over an unvarying twelve-bar bass, the blues is more confession than celebration of what it is like to be black and blue. Claudio Segovia and Hector Orezoli recognize the blues as the soul of jazz and they exalt the blues, revealing its many moods as they did in Flamenco Puro and Tango Argentino. But the blues is an American affair and what remains steadfast in Black and Blue--despite the feathers and sequins is the raw beauty of the black American song and tap. Broadway 1989, Tony Award for Best Choreography of a musical presented to Cholly Atkins, Henry LeTang, Frankie Manning, and Fayard Nicholas. Production originated in Paris. - Source
- Hill, Constance Valis: Brotherhood in Rhythm: The Jazz Tap Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers. New York: Oxford University Press (2000).
- New York Public Library: CATNYP: Dance Collection: Tap Dancing. New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Gregory Hines Collection of American Tap Dance ().
- Hill, Constance Valis: "Black and Blue . . .". Attitude: The Dancers Magazine, 5 no. 3, Spring 1989, p 4-5 (1989).
Last Updated: 12-16-2015