Celebrate Tap Dance's Unsung Hero and Watch Two Restored Tap Documentaries
July 13, 2017

Tomorrow night at 7 pm, the American Tap Dance Foundation will host a special performance at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Appel Room in honor of legendary jazz pianist and composer Duke Ellington. The program, aptly titled “Tap Ellington,” will feature the Duke Ellington Center’s Big Band and tap stars like Tony Waag, Brenda Bufalino, Sam Weber, Sarah Reich and Josette and Joseph Wiggan.


Tap dance and jazz music have always gone hand in hand. Not only did Ellington compose music for tap dancers like Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Bunny Briggs and Buster Brown, but he had a legacy of promoting and presenting tap dancers around the world. “Tap Ellington” celebrates the long-standing relationship between tap and jazz and Ellington’s immense influence on both. For more info, click here.

Bunny Briggs in No Maps on My Taps

Can’t get enough tap? Check out the two recently digitally restored documentaries about tap dance: No Maps on My Taps (1979), starring Chuck Green, Bunny Briggs and Harold “Sandman” Sims, and About Tap (1985), starring Green, with Jimmy Slyde and Steve Condos. Both films will premiere later this year on Turner Classic Movies.

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