May 25 of every year (Bill Robinson’s birthday) is National Tap Dance Day! And how better to observe it than by learning about many of America’s great tap dancing artists on Travalanche? Tappers (and sometime tappers) we’ve written about here have included Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Buster Brown, Gregory Hines, Ginger Jack Wiggins, Aaron Palmer, Sandman Sims, Leonard Reed, Hal Le Roy, Sammy Davis Jr, Eleanor Powell, The Nicholas Brothers, John Bubbles, Peg Leg Bates, Cholly Atkins, Marilyn Miller, Ginger Rogers, Fred and Adele Astaire, Gene Kelly, Vilma and Buddy Ebsen, the Four Step Brothers, Slow Kid Thompson, Eddie Rector, Ann Pennington, Donald O’Connor and Pat Rooney. And of course the Grandaddy of the them all, the Inventor of Tap, Master Juba.
Click on the links above to learn more. And there are others on Travalanche. Just type their names into the search function on the right hand column of this blog. (Incidentally, many of them have more than one post). Or browse the tap section of Travalanche, which includes all of these tappers plus all sorts of other dancers from vaudeville. To do that go here.
To find out more about tap dance and the history of vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.
(Travalanche) 