Cape Town City Ballet’s Night and Day. A Cole Porter Ballet featuring classical ballet, jazz and tap dance set to the unforgettable songs scripted by Cole Porter. DEBBIE HATHWAY finds out more from tap choreographer Paul Johnson.
IN A biting critique of De-Lovely, the 2004 film about the life of Cole Porter, New York Times reviewer Stephen Holden provides context to the “composer’s carefree years, which ended abruptly in 1937 when a riding accident fractured both his legs and left him in acute pain for the rest of his life.”
He continued composing and produced his masterpiece, Kiss Me Kate, in 1948. A decade later, four years after his wife Linda’s death from emphysema, the amputation of his right leg “broke his spirit, and he spent his last six years in a stony depression, dulled by drugs and alcohol.”
Cape Town City Ballet’s Night and Day: A Cole Porter Ballet, now on at Artscape Theatre, pays tribute to Porter’s musical prowess that gave rise to some of the most memorable songs from the first half of the 20th century.
Careful attention to the lyrics reveals his self-proclaimed desire to have “every kind of love that was available” and his frustration that he “could never find them in the same person, or the same sex”.
Porter crafts words in the same way that John Bubbles, the father of rhythm tap, creates movement. “Listen to my feet and I will tell you the story of my life,” said Bubbles.
It’s precisely that storytelling ability that Cape Town-based choreographer Paul Johnson looks for when coaching the Cape Town City Ballet tappers for their roles in songs such as Anything Goes, You’re the Top and Blow, Gabriel, Blow. “Musicality, and light and shade... that’s what I look for in the footwork. Every step has meaning – if it’s designed to move forward it will have a particular rhythm and quality of sound that doesn’t work if you dance it backwards instead,” he explains. It makes sense of Fred Astaire’s description of his own tap dancing style: “I just put my feet in the air and move them around.”
And that’s the key, Johnson says.
Tapping is about the movement off the floor, not into it as per the flamenco style.
Johnson trained in the ballroom dances with Gladys Hendricks and in contemporary dance with Arlene Westergaard, but it was his casting in a production of Grease, which opened with a huge tap number, that changed the direction of his career in dance. “I fell in love with the sound and I was determined to learn how to tap. I phoned Beryl Saayman every week for a year before she agreed to teach me,” he says.
Defined technically as a step dance “tapped out audibly by means of shoes with hard soles, or soles and heels, to which taps have been added”, tap dancing developed out of a need to communicate uncensored between individuals and groups. Its origins are widely attributed to a fusion of ethnic percussive dances practiced by African slaves and Irish indentured servants in the American South. Modern researchers have also noted the influence of urban environments such as the Five Points District in New York City, where several ethnic groups living in close proximity were in “constant contact with the distinctly urban rhythms and syncopations of the machine age”.
While over time interest in tap dancing has spiked with releases of films like Tap(1989), starring Gregory Hines, international stage shows such as Tap Dogs and Stomp, and touring musicals such as Singin’ in the Rain, it remains one of the most underrated and least promoted dance forms today. And yet, within today’s choreographic spectrum, which really knows no bounds, dancers who don’t tap “are screwed”, says Johnson.
Whether the choreography is 1930s elegant (Gene Kelly/Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers), or 1990s earthy (Stomp), tap dancers today have the opportunity to distinguish themselves through their ability to produce complex sounds that vary in intensity and range.
Whether he’s choreographing for an amateur stage musical, a beauty pageant or the opening ceremony for the 1997 World Fencing Championships, Johnson’s demands of the performers are the same – quality, quantity and rhythm.
His choreographic credits also include creating the original tap dance for David Kramer and Taliep Petersen’s Kat and the Kings and A Night of a 100 Stars fundraiser that involved coordinating the participation of Sarah, the Duchess of York, in the finale.
For aspirant tappers, Johnson recommends investing in time (three years’ minimum training) and Capezio tap shoes, which offer the best fit with a sound to match. Jingles cheat the ear – if you miss a shuffle, the shoes still make a sound but with the solid Capezio or Sansha tap, there’s nowhere to hide. And to practice? “You don’t need a lot of space,” says Johnson.
“The minute you can do your dance in the toilet, you can tap, but what makes a tapper is still practice, practice and more practice!”
l At Artscape Theatre today, Friday and Saturday at 7.45pm with matinees on Saturday at 2pm and at 3pm on Sunday. The production continues at Maynardville Open-air Theatre in Wynberg every Sunday from January 24 to February 21 at 8.15pm. Computicket, 0861 915 8000 and Artscape Dial-a-Seat 021 421 7695.