All the World's a Stage
A public confession: I'm going to quit tap dancing. Not metaphorically (I've been unambiguous enough in my opinions over the years to be accused of many things, but rarely tap-dancing). I mean literally. I've been taking a tap class every Saturday for the last dozen years. It's not that I haven't enjoyed it. In many ways the class has been a mind and soul-saver, a small but steady light of progress and self-empowerment in an era in which so many things outside of class have stagnated and the phrase "power of the press" has felt increasingly like an oxymoron. Mastering a routine felt at least as satisfying as publishing a column, in large part because in the last couple of years I've been more successful at learning tap routines than in publishing columns. Such is the life of a freelance journalist these days. But the ambition imbalance is not the not reason I'm bowing out. Nor is the class itself. It was a historical revelation when I first came across it in 1997, and it still is. We call ourselves the Eddie Brown tap dancers, after the founding instructor who was a legendary tapper, but one of many notable black performers who've more or less been forgotten by history. Eddie was never forgotten by the tightknit community of tap aficionados across the city who made their way to his class back in the 1980s and kept him from total obscurity. When Eddie died in 1992, a student named Howard Blume took over the class and continued teaching Eddie routines--no small feat, since Eddie was a brilliant but totally improvisational "rhythm" tapper who never remembered any of his routines and never wrote them down.
Howard, as it happens, was a colleague of mine at the LA Weekly (now a reporter at the Los Angeles Times) when he told me about the class; I'd taken tap as a kid and was looking to reconnect with the art form. I couldn't quite believe Howard taught dance at all, let alone tap dance--he's a great journalist, with great patience, but not exactly somebody who looks like he busts moves on a regular basis. I went to his class out of curiosity, or incredulity. I left a believer, both in Howard and in the legacy he was working to preserve. I became one of the faithful. I followed Howard's class from the Westside, where he taught in a Brazilian nightclub, to Silver Lake, where he built a studio at his house. Eddie's picture hangs on the wall of what you could call his permanent home.
So why am I leaving? Mostly because I don't think I live up to the kind of commitment and artistry Eddie stood for. He danced for his life; I dabble. I've always liked to think of myself as a natural heir to tap, but I'm not. I don't know why I'm only realizing this now, or why it feels important. But I do know that in between the childhood tap I loved and the tap I struggle with now is a concern that I remember, and be remembered for, what I'm good at. Or even great at. It sounds obvious, but if anybody ever teaches what I was about, it won't be tap. Dance has given me many things, but now feels like the time for me to give to myself.
I have to take over. Eddie would understand.
The image associated with this post was taken by Flickr user magandafille. It was used under Creative Commons license.
