- 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.
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Colorado Dance Festival (First Annual) "Fascinatin' Rhythms" / Marda Kirn [festival]
- Title
- Colorado Dance Festival (First Annual) "Fascinatin' Rhythms" [Festival]
- Performers
- Kirn, Marda
- Kriegsman, Sali Ann
- Published/Created
- 1986-06-27
- Genre
- Festival
- Venue
- Abstract
- June 27-29, 1986
Colorado Dance Festival's "Fascinatin Rhythms" a Jazz Tap Celebration
In 1986, Colorado Dance Festival brought together a handful of leading and legendary African-American and European-American artists presenting the first two-week rhythm tap festival ever held. The festival included a series of classes, lecture demonstrations, historical lectures, film and video screenings, and other events. The festival performances and conference activities were attended by a handful of presenters who had little familiarity with rhythm tap. Yet the exposure convinced them of the importance of this nearly lost art form and led them to develop their own tap events using the CDF model, resulting in tap festivals held in six cities across the United States.
First tap festival of CDF, co-directed by Sali Ann Kreigsman and Marda Kirn, the two week festival within a festival featured classes, perfomances,and a conference on the art of rhythm tap, all held in Boulder and Denver, Colorado.
Participants: Eddie Brown, Brenda Bufalino, Charles Honi Coles, Steve Condos, Stanley Crouch, Gregory Hines, Jimmy Slyde, Sally R. Sommer, Eric Von Essen (assist), Lynn Dally, Jane Goldberg, and Sali Ann Kriegsman.
Locations: The Black American West Museum and Heritage Center; The Casino Cabaret; The Paramount Theatre; Mountain Bell.
Performance of "The Great Tap Reunion" (June 27-28) Paramount Theatre. Master of Ceremonies, Gregory Hines. Dancers: Eddie Brown, Charles Honi Coles, Steve Condos, Gregory Hines, Jimmy Slyde.
Colorado Dance/Tap Festival
1986: Marda Kirn organizes the Colorado Tap Festival, setting the model for big tap festivals and reunions that will proliferate in the eighties and nineties. Created by Marda Kirn (director of Colorado Tap Festival) and Sali Ann Kriegsman (dance critic and dance producer at Smithsonian Institute); such master tap dancers as Eddie Brown, Charles "Honi" Coles, Steve Condos, Gregory Hines, and Jimmy Slyde were invited to teach, perform, and participate in panel discussions. No female tap dancers were invited to perform this first year. Jane Goldberg, Brenda Bufalino and Lynn Dally-- despite being artistic directors of tap dance companies, were invited only to participate on panels and discuss the art of the elder statesmen of tap dance. Despite the fact that these women had been largely responsible for bringing tap dance to the forefront of culture, they were not invited to perform. At one of the panel discussions, Terry Brock from Portland, Oregon, asked,"Why aren't these women teaching? They are our mentors!" Her sentiments were echoed by others in the audience. The uproar over the controversy brought news of their exclusion to Gregory Hines who, one night during the performance, yelled out, "Where are the women?" He called Bufalino, Dally, Goldberg, Dorothy Wasserman, and Dianne Walker to the stage (Bufalino took to the stage wearing a pair of men's tap shoes that Hines lent her on the spur of the moment). The women improvised around the Shim Sham, thereby breaking the taboo spell that had hung over the event. - Source
- Bufalino, Brenda: Tapping The Source: tap dance stories, theory and practice. New Paltz: Codhill Press (2004).
Last Updated: 12-16-2015