Tonight I went to see Savion Glover, a tap dancer, perform with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. He was wild and really cool. It was interesting finding out that the entire show was improvised, too. The concert on Saturday is sold out, so if you want to see him, you can’t.
His performance gave me quite a bit of respect for tap dancing. I didn’t — still don’t — know much about it, but for sure it has a lot more to do with keeping basic time than tapping 1 2 3 4 over and over again.
The symphony also played this song called The Charleston, which was fittingly a Charleston song. They had dancers who well, if you could call them that, danced something that looked nothing like a Charleston dance. When I tell people I swing dance and how cool it is, I now know what half the people are thinking. I mean, I don’t think they could have picked anyone else in the world to make that dance look even half as gay. Even Jason Seldin! (Sorry Jay).
So, all that to say, I have much respect for the Baltimore School for the Arts with regards to classical dancing (ballet, jazz, and even tap too?), but wow, as a swing dancer I think the performance with the BSO tonight was downright embarassing. Please don’t knock swing dancing till you’ve tried it. And if you haven’t tried it, check us out at Charm City Swing.
Thanks for the Sd hint.
Congrats to Charm City Swing on its 2nd anniversary!
Gotta get those pics posted over at picasa!