Tap Happenings tomorrow - March 6, 2010

A choice to make.  

    Choice #1 -  Go to the book signing of Constance Valis Hill's new book,  "Tap Dancing America:  A Cultural History", at Barnes & Noble Lincoln Square (1972 Broadway).  There will also be special guests, Mercedes Ellington, Karen Callaway Williams, Dormeshia Sumbry Edwards and Michela Marino-Lerman, with Theo Hill on piano. Time:  7:30pm.   

    Choice #2 -  See Brenda Bufalino and Jay Clayton collaborate in performance at the 7th Annual Vision Nights:  "Dialogues in Dance, Music and Art", at 14th Street Y Theatre.  The performance will interact with the changing installation, "Sticks and Stones", a site specific art installation by Jo-Wood Brown.  Time:  7:00pm.

     I'm still trying to make up my mind which to see because I know everybody involved.  Patricia Nicholson, who produces the Vision series where Jay and Brenda are performing, is someone I have known of for years in the downtown dance scene.  Jay is a great singer who used to be a neighbor of mine when we lived in DUMBO in the early 80s when NOBODY KNEW WHAT DUMBO WAS!!!  Brenda is one the people who's been in there for many years keeping tap alive.  I remember Constance when she was in tap class with Charles "Cookie" Cook back in the day.  I also remember when my dad called me into the living room way back in the 1960s and pointed to the TV to say, "There's a colored girl dancing with the June Taylor Dancers on the Jackie Gleason Show!".  She was Mercedes Ellington.  Michela, Dormeshia and Karen are three of the hottest young women tap dancers nowadays who are continuing what some of us have tried to lay down.
    So, what to do?  But it's great that things are happening tap wise and I have choices.  Go see one of the events!