Savion Glover: Tap of the Times

Savion Glover is credited as the man who saved tap dancing in our current culture. He repopularized the style and re-intrigued audiences with his own style of tap dancing. Today we’re going to take you on a short journey looking at his life and how he has influenced Tap dance in America.

Savion Glover has been a rhythmical genius his whole life. At the age of 4, he began taking drum lessons, but his teacher quickly realized his rhythms were far more advanced than expected. He joined the Newark Community School of the Arts shortly after and became the youngest student to ever receive a full scholarship. At age 7 he took his first tap class and, to no surprise, showed to be a promising rhythm tap dancer. Shortly after, Glover’s career began to take off. In 1984, he was cast as an understudy for the lead role in The Tap Dance Kid, but quickly stole the spotlight and performed the role in his Broadway debut. He also starred in Black and Blue, giving him a Tony nomination, and the movie Tap soon after. The next year in 1990, Glover began to showcase his choreography at New York’s Apollo Theatre. In 1995, Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk, a chronicle of Black history choreographed by and starring Savion Glover, opened off-Broadway and toured around the US. The following year the show moved to Broadway where it would win four Tony Awards, including one for best choreography. Moving forward, in 2001 Glover made an appearance in Bojangles, the story of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and in 2006 became the sound for the tap dancing penguin “Mumble” in Happy Feet.  After a ten year absence from the stage, in 2016 Glover returned to Broadway to choreograph Shuffle Along, Or, The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed, awarding him with yet another Tony. 

Savion Glover, under the guidance of Tap masters such as Sammy Davis Jr. and Gregory Hines, has developed his own style of tap dancing called “hitting” which he describes as “free-from hard core” tap. He mixes the classic tap dance teachings with the rhythms of rap and hip-hop music of today, allowing for an entire new sound. His upper body is “hazy and ghost-like” while his feet move at unmatchable speed, all while creating clear, articulate sounds and rhythms. Often, Savion Glover will perform an unaccompanied, acapella improvisation, allowing him free range to create whatever he pleases. He is his own music.  Glover asks himself, “What does the sound look like that you see when you are listening? Do you hear what you see? Or do you see what you hear?” Posing questions like these allows the audience to better understand that a tapper is not only a dancer, but also a musician creating a song with his feet. 

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Seibert, B. (2019, July 02). Savion Glover, Listening to the Sound of His Own Searching. Retrieved July 27, 2020.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2019, November 15). Savion Glover. Retrieved July 27, 2020.