I'm in Berlin for this year's Berlinale. An ocean away from New York City, my home base, the city I love. My aunt, an attorney, invites me to watch her tap dance lesson.
She is an attorney. An excellent one, I'm told. An attorney with a passion. A passion for tap dancing. And a nose for talent. Somehow, she seems to have found one of Berlin's most gifted tap dancers. (I am not qualified to judge really, but so he seems to be as I sit and watch.)
Artists actually spent their time and made their livelihood from their art, rather than waiting tables or answering phones.
He stayed. Germans love tap dancing. And they expect black dancers to (especially men) to know it. So he studied a kind of dance he'd never known in the States.
He studied with the best.
He stands on a small platform in his loft apartment in the Kruezberg section of Berlin. He leans over to his iPod to locate a song he has in mind.
The music starts. The bass asserts itself. And effortlessly, he starts to dance.
My aunt follows suit from her own larger platform across the room.
He demonstrates. She echoes. He repeats. She repeats. He stops and hilights a tiny detail of the rhythm. She tries and tries again.
And so it goes like this for 70 minutes. Dialogue through rhythm. A conversation from heel to toe and back again.
Suddenly the obvious to some is obvious to me as well. Tap dance is percussion. Tap dance is music.Tap dance is discussion, disagreement and agreement and everything in between.
He tap tap taps.
She tap tap taps.
I listen. I watch.
And I am transfixed.
And we are transformed.
Until we meet again.
For more info on the artist described above, visit his website. His name is Morris Perry. And he's much more than a dancer. He appears to be an impresario of sorts as well. And, obvsiously, he's a gifted teacher.
