Current mood:

tired

New York: Day 1
My first full day in New York, and the last day of the tap festival.

Four masterclasses in a day. That really is getting value for money out of being here, at the expense of common sense.

First up was Josh Hilberman, who reminds me of Patrick, my first tap teacher at Bodyworks, Cambridge. We did a routine to C bar blues which was amazing. Taught well too. We didn't realise until close to the end that the part of the routine we'd been working on first was actually in a break in the music which made it look really flashy. He choreographed the routine originally for Jazz Tap Ensemble (? is this right), originally in two groups -- but we did both groups' parts ourselves. Josh had a useful and unusual piece of advice for us budding hoofers picking up steps from others: "Lie, cheat, steal". He made us repeat it back to him.

After a quick break, some hardcore rhythm tap with Jason Samuel Smith, standing in for LaVaugh Robinson. No music, just beautiful tapping. He was improvising the routine as he taught it to us, so we got to see the creative process. His warm up was similar to Junior's (he cited someone else... whose name I now forget) and very intensive
-- I think that was the root cause of my agonies the following
morning.

Another thirty minute break for lunch (indigestion here we come!) and on to Lynn Dally -- the founder of the Jazz Tap Ensemble. I liked her style and her approach -- lighter and jazzier than the others -- but I was really beginning to flag and the steps just weren't sinking in. She rotated the class, sending the front line to the back every so often, which is a nice idea but made it hard to settle in a position where you can see the teacher adequately. Unfortunately she stopped rotating just when I reached the back, and after struggling for a bit longer I slipped out to go and nurse my aching feet and try to rest a bit before the final class.

Lady Di (Dianne Walker) has a teaching style which is totally new to me. She will show a step only once or twice (in fact, this was the way she did the warm up!) and rarely dances at the same time as the students. When you struggle, she speaks the rhythm in a way that immediately makes sense, but she doesn't seem to notice when people haven't got a clue what's going on. Unfortunately by this point in the day I was totally exhausted mentally as well as physically and I wasn't getting it. I slipped back a couple of rows so that I had someone in front of me to copy and was able to pick up the routine well enough to perform to the class with the rest of my row. Looking back, I think the routine was actually quite easy -- I would definately take a Lady Di class again, provided i was a bit more on the ball!

What do I take away from this? I think I prefer male tap dancers to female ones (which is lucky) both in terms of the style of teaching and the style of dancing. And I think that six hours of dance tuition in a day is a bit too much when still jet lagged. Next year I should plan to miss a session, but maybe make up for it by going to more other stuff.

In the evening I went to Time Square. Yuck. A seriously busy road junction has its place in every town, as does a touristy square with shops and restaurants. But to have them both in the same place? Madness. Imagine a cross between Leicester Square and the M25. As I still haven't found a nice cafe in Manhattan, I ate at Europan, who sell sandwiches and the like. I've eaten worse. After that, the Duke theatre for the last performance of the festival and the opportunity to see some of the most amazing dancing ever, and a fascinating monologue from one of the old time greats, Harold Cromer. Josh Hilberman did a dance originally by Paul Draper and the Rhythm Queens (Tony Waag: "of course, I used to be a rhythm queen") did a lovely song and dance thing with the target audience in mind (they made a rhyme with "K360s"). The grand finale was a communal shim sham led by the Hoofer Award winning Ernest "Brownie" Brown (is that right?) who half-hobbled, half-tapped but still managed to be hilarious.

I ate a hotdog on the way home. Strangely satisfying. And bought a nectarine from one of the myriad corner shops with more fruit and veg on show than most greengrocers in the UK -- and this was at midnight.