Tap City Awards 2012

Well, last Friday ended the six days of events and classes of the NewYork Tap Festival, better known as Tap City.  Last Wednesday was the festival's 2012 Awards Ceremony held in the Bruno Walter Auditorium of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.  Each year people are honored who have made important contributions to the art of tap dance and, since the ceremony was not held last year, Wednesday's event presented awards for 2011 and 2012.  I was honored to be one of the presenters.

It was a nice, warm evening (I'm not talking about the weather, which thankfully was not real hot, but

Max Pollak and RumbaTap performing

the "vibe" of the show) with a full house and heart felt presentations.  I presented the 2011 Tap Preservation Award to my good friend Jacqui Malone, who is a writer and professor and just all around good person.  Before I spoke, two of her former students surprised her with a performance that  combined tap and African Dance, which totally was a surprise for Jacqui!  All the other awardees had performances to honor them before they got their awards.  The other awardees were;  2012 Tap Preservation Award -  Cobi Narita,  2011/2012 Hoofer Awards -  Max Pollak/Jason Samuels Smith,  2011/2012 International Tap Dance Hall of Fame -  Cholly Atkins/The Whitman Sisters Legacy, and 2011/2012 Toe Knee Awards -  Stephanie Waag Blackman & Cindy Roush/Thelma Goldberg.

Dianne Walker, Jacqui Malone Sally Sommers after the show

Constance Valis Hill, Sally Sommers and Jacqui all talked about Cholly Atkins.  Margaret Morrison gave a presentation on The Whitman Sisters.  Michela Marino Lerman danced to vocals by Baano for Cobi Narita.  Tony talked about the specialness of Stephanie, Cindy and Thelma.  Max actually danced with his group RumbaTap in a new work and then a member of that group, Chikako Iwahori, talked about Max.  Chloe Arnold, Michelle Dorrance and Dormeshia hit the floor for Jason before each shared their feelings about him.  All awardees had genuine emotion in their acceptance speeches and Jason ended the evening talking about the importance of advancing the tap art form.

The audience had a bunch of heavy weights, too.  Harold Cromer, Brenda Bufalino. Susan Goldbetter, Megan Haungs, Dianne Walker, Al Heyward, Ann Kilkelly and more.  It was just good to be there.