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Savion Glover
[1973-0]
American
Rank: 101
Dancer
Savion Glover is an American tap dancer, actor, and choreographer.
Hope
,
Learning
,
Thankful
Quote
Tags
Rank
I'm still growing, still learning. I'm still open and vulnerable enough to know there's much more to be taught to me and learned by me. I hope I don't reach my pinnacle on this earth where I think I know it all.
Hope
,
Learning
101
My personal style at this point in my life is more audio; it's more driven on less visual and more musicality. But because of my upbringing, my fabulous mentors and teachers that I've had throughout my dance journey or career, I also possess a style that is of the past. It was just a matter of me reaching back.
102
I love riding my ATV 450.
103
What I'm trying to do is bring young people into doing tap so that the art form will keep going.
104
Tap's foundation is jazz, just like hip-hop, so relating tap-dancing to rap is natural for me.
105
When Puffy asked me to do the video, I said yes. Cuz it's all about the Benjamins!
106
I'm more a percussion instrument than a dancer.
107
Jimmy Slyde was more a musician than a dancer; Greg Hines was more musician than dancer.
108
Whether it is Jimmy Slyde or Lon Chaney or Gregory Hines, their dance shows what they experienced, what they had to go through.
109
I come from a long line of people who express themselves through the dance. I come from a long line of people who create music through their feet.
110
I was always looking at footage of dancers from Nicholas Brothers to Ralph Brown to Sand Man to Miller Brothers and Lois, and I grew up looking at old footage.
111
The connection of what I do to flamenco lies in the whole lament, whole cry, whole pouring back into the earth and giving energy back to the earth. It's a cry and a celebration. That's what music, sound, vibration should do. It should spark energy in someone.
112
Authenticity is the most important thing. You have to know where it all comes from, study who pioneered it.
113
I try to convey the musical notes through dance, take on the music.
114
I search for different tonalities in my taps. But my greatest pleasure is hearing a note I haven't heard before, hearing a chord that sparks something new.
115
When I wake up in the morning, I just go.
116
I never really stop and think about should I put my hat on this way or that, not thinking that little JoJo down the street would be copying that. I'm more conscious about it now and tell the kids that it's not about the shoes or what kind of shoes... it's all about the dance.
117
I was a drummer in a group called Three Plus. We were performing at a club in New York, and my mother signed me up for tap classes. I fell in love from the door... so you can blame it on my mother.
118
I'm thankful I am able to continue to share the joy and the inspiration tap brings.
Thankful
119
I've changed my whole angle for dance. I'm moving towards moving back rather than hanging out with my peers. I'm reaching back to older dudes for a second.
120
I was first introduced to dancing through the TV: I remember watching ballet, jazz and ballroom dancing when I was very little. But I felt no connection with it whatsoever: it was just like watching a Tom and Jerry cartoon.
121
It wasn't until I did a musical revue in Paris in the 1980s called 'Black and Blue,' and met the great men and women responsible for the progress of tap dance, that my relationship with the dance really began.
122
I'm inspired by breath, by the human body - by so many things.
123
There are many different styles of, and approaches to, tap. My own leans towards a more intellectual view: tap dancing not just for the sake of entertainment but to educate and spark emotion.
124
I like to be around dancers who are totally committed to the art form, totally committed to the men and women around them.
125
If someone wants to be very tight about authenticity or ownership, it just sounds kind of competitive to me.
126
I want to share what I have, and I'd rather share it with people that are a little bit more open-minded.
201
Frank Sinatra changed people's approach to singing. Ella Fitzgerald, Marvin Gaye, van Gogh, they were all part of movements that allowed people to think about their craft differently. They changed the game. These people changed the game.
202
When you think about John Coltrane, in my opinion - and I think I share this opinion with a lot of people - his approach to music changed other people's approach to music.
203
I realized early on, I'm more interested in Baryshnikov than some dancer who wants to do a rock show with ballet.
204
Every now and then, someone comes along - we used to call it 'New Jack' - tries to do something new, tries to take all the credit, without acknowledging the past.
205
I wake up, and I'm in the zone... My performance is the continuation of my life.
206
Everything has to do with meditation. It's a conversation; it's a joy - it's everything.
207
Who is Savion Glover? Who is that guy? Good question. I'm a lot of things... Intense... Focused.
208
I started as a drummer. The feet are an extension of that.
209
I've come to realize that people dance for reasons of their own.
210
I used to think I could save tap. But tap was here way before I was, and it's going to be here after I'm gone.
211
I was very happy with the success of 'Noise/Funk,' but of course, there is a lot more that I have to say about the dance, about the history, about the people involved with the dance and their history.
212
I actually wanted to be a fireman when I was younger.
213
I like to express myself inside of the work that is given, and I let the dancers do the same.
214
Movie making is such a long process, and they only use that one take, although you do it over and over about 30 times. Live theatre is that one time and one time only.
215
They all come from the street - tap, jazz and flamenco. And the streets are always changing. If it comes from the streets, change is the only thing that's consistent.
216
There are people who take tap class, do a tap dance. And then there are people who know the dance, who know why they take tap classes. Who know why they do 20 shuffles, or 50 shuffles, before they go on.
217
I used to think I had this responsibility to carry on this tradition. Now I just feel like I have to keep the dance out there, keep it in the public eye.
218
I want tap to be something danced in arenas. Sort of like a rock group. Other art forms happen every night. Take theater, opera; there's always opera happening every night.
219
Whatever you do, just learn about what you're doing; get into it.
220
The sound of tap is not 'clickety clickety tap tap,' this monotone thing. The sound of tap has depth. We want you to hear the different highs and lows, the bass, the trebles and the melodies, if you can.
221
My mom always had me and my brother watching old Fred Astaire movies.
222
My style is raw; my style is '95. My style is what I live. My style is my story.
223
I can hold a note, but that's about it.
224
Just like a comedian has a certain joke or a jazz musician has a riff that they know will get the crowd, a tap dancer always has a step.
225
I can produce any instrument, any sound that I can imagine; it may be percussive to the audience, but in my mind it may be a piano, a melody, or a tuba, or a harp, or a harmonica. My mission is to allow people to hear the dance in its purity and up against any other type of sound or music.
226
I don't really care what the visual is looking like. I've gotten away from - not shenanigans, but spectacle.
301
What we're looking for at my school is intellectuals. People who want to talk about the art and be knowledgeable about it. People who want to know the history. Not everybody needs to be performing.
302
For me, the importance in learning about the dance is using it as a voice. It's not about a step, it's about a way to express oneself.
303
I don't deal in terminology, I deal with expressions: colors, shapes, tones, characteristics.
304
You can go to see a singer and love the show, but you don't need to know all the songs. What you want to do when you leave is go and find out more about the music.
305
They're taking away the arts programmes in the schools, and that's a terrible thing.
306
I'm committed to the purity of my art form.
307
The spirituality of the dance, that's something that's evolved for me in the past ten years or so. I'm still trying to figure out where that's taking me.
308
We need these figures who don't exactly go against the grain but create a new grain.
309
I deal with more complex rhythmical patterns than a regular tap dancer. I even think in rhythms.
310
I grew up watching Gregory Hines banging out rhythms like drum beats, and Jimmy Slyde dancing these melodies, you know, bop-bah-be-do-bap, not just tap-tap-tap. Everyone else was dancing in monotone, but I could hear the hoofers in stereo, and they influenced me to have this musical approach towards tap.
311
It's as if my left heel is my bass drum and my right heel is the floor tom-tom. I can get snare out of my right toe by not putting it down on the floor hard, and, if I want cymbals, I land flat on both feet, full strength on the floor.
312
There's a whole new generation who know about tap dancing thanks to 'Happy Feet.'
313
I want to entertain, but I'm interested in a whole range of feelings.
314
Every performance is different because I'm different; my mood is different.
315
Other dances are like languages, like French or Spanish, but my steps are slang, and slang is always changing.
316
I'm a basketball freak.
317
The youth coming up is interested in dance now, and they're coming to the shows. That's a blessing for those of us who create.
318
Great athletes last because they let the mental do all the work. What we do as hoofers is not so much a physical strain as everybody thinks. It's more of a mental stretch.
319
When you find real jazz on the radio dial, it comes in all static-y. It's just like tap dancers. You have to go uptown to find the real hoofers. We only come to midtown if we're called upon.
320
I go for a nice walk in my neighborhood and search for vinyl, old jazz, classics. Then I go home and listen to them.
321
I'm continuing the educational process of getting people to accept dance as music.
322
There's a tendency to think tap's had its day, but 'Happy Feet' kept us in the race. That penguin is our Shirley Temple.
323
A tapper sticks to existing routines. Whereas hoofing... a hoofer pushes the art form.
324
There's no dancer alive better than those of the 1950s and 1960s. It's only the energy that changes. Every now and then, someone like me comes along, and people say, 'Oh, this guy is this new thing.' But that's not so. There is no me without them. The tradition just goes on.
325
What does genius mean? God has put us here specifically... every person has a job or journey to do. It's just a matter of finding what we're here to fulfill or execute. That's genius to me.
326
I'm just blessed, man. I'm just happy to share my art form with everyone. That's cool.
401
I see myself helping the next generation of dancers who come along, helping them to keep the dance focused, so we don't get into a position where they're saying in 2050, or whatever, that around 2001 or 2002 or something the dance died.
402
My mom couldn't afford dance shoes, so she put me in these old cowboy boots with a hard bottom so I could get some sound out. I used them for seven months. When I finally got real tap shoes, I was nervous. I kept moving my feet, thinking, 'Oh, so this is how it's supposed to sound.'
403
My show mode is that the dressing room is like going into the cockpit. Going down the stairs is like going on the runway, and once we begin performing, it's flight time. I'm just floatin' on that stage.
404
