Tap Dancing

powell and astaire in 1940

Is this basically a dead art? It’s a rather big shame. I have recently seen several Eleanor Powell films, and she truly was the queen of tap dancing. According to one of the special features on the Broadway Melody of 1940 DVD, Fred Astaire was actually nervous to dance with her–she was THAT good. And in Born to Dance (1936) she plays opposite Jimmy Stewart–who sings (and not that badly).

Good tap dancing knocks the pants off all that Stomp crap.


This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 11th, 2005 at 6:44 pm and is filed under Blather, films. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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2 Comments so far
  1. kimby January 12, 2005 2:19 pm

    I expect that there is still lots of tap dancing on Broadway…I wouldn’t know for sure because its been so long since I’ve seen a show, but The Producers seems like the kind of show that would have it.

  2. Terri January 12, 2005 2:39 pm

    You may be right that there’s still tap on Broadway, though I wonder if there’s a lot of it. I really don’t know.

    Really good tap in person is so impressive. I’ll never forget seeing a girl in my grade do a tap recital with her tap teacher. I think it was in Jr. High. It was thrilling! They were so good!