LaVaughn Robinson
Encyclopedia
LaVaughn Robinson (February 9, 1927 – January 22, 2008)
was an US tap dance
r, choreographer, and teacher.
A virtuoso tap dancer, Robinson perfected a high speed, low to the ground, a cappella
style of dance that was characterized by elegance, precision, and clarity of sound. In a career spanning over 70 years, he started performing on the street, then in nightclubs, and finally in national and international tap festivals. He was recognized by the National Endowment of the Arts as a "Living National Treasure", received a NEA National Heritage Fellowship
in 1989, a lifetime honor, and a 1992 Pew Fellowship in the Arts
.
, one of seven brothers and seven sisters. His mother (Catherine Griffin Robinson) taught him his first tap dancing step, the plain time step, at the age of seven. During the Depression
, Philadelphia was a Mecca of tap dancing; the Nicholas Brothers
(Fayard and Harold) and the Condos Brothers (Steve, Frank, and Nick) came from Robinson's neighborhood. Robinson learned from older street dancers, who vied for the best corners for busking
. The elements of successful busking consisted of the ability to catch the attention of passersby, build a crowd, and then pass the hat. The competition required fierce demonstration of dancing prowess, like a gunfighter riding into town and challenging the local champion, with the winners getting better corners. The ultimate corner in Philadelphia was at Broad and South Streets. The better the dance ability, the nearer to Broad Street the dancer would be permitted busk. Broad Street being the same as 14th Street, the corners at either 2nd and South or 25th and South implied modest dance skills. Although he had no formal dance training, this competitive zeal influenced Robinson's style, and Broad and South became his corner at the age of 13. He also danced and played in a tramp band
(washboard
, washtub bass
, and kazoo
), and when he was older, he busked in clubs. Robinson earned enough money by busking to buy his own clothes, contribute to paying for the family groceries, and to go to the Earle Theater. It was here that Robinson saw the great tap dancers of the day: Baby Lawrence who performed with Count Basie Orchestra
, the Nicholas Brothers with Dolly Dawn and the Dawn Patrol, and Robinson's particular favorite Teddy Hale with Louis Jordan
. Robinson admired Teddy Hale's rendition of Begin the Beguine
, and particularly liked Hale's improvisational style, in which on successive performances, he performed entirely different dances, as opposed to a fixed act—the norm at the time. At this formative age, Robinson met Henry Meadows, an older dancer who took an interest in Robinson, and taught him a close to the ground, fast step called a paddle and roll, which was to be an important element in Robinson's mature style. Henry Meadows partnered with Robinson, on and off, over a period of 40 years.
and opened for Cab Calloway
, for Tommy Dorsey's
Band, and on the same stage at the Apollo Theater
with Ella Fitzgerald
. Robinson also danced with Eddie Sledge and Tony Lopez when he worked for Eddie Smith, a booking agent who handled only trios and quartets. Robinson performed in a close rhythms style, avoiding splits, jumps, and flips of the style of the Nicholas Brothers, after suffering injuries to his legs. He performed at the Broadwood Hotel and Palumbo's
, then the resort hotels in the Catskills
, Club Delisa
in Chicago, the 500 Club and the Harlem Club both in Atlantic City, New Jersey and throughout Canada
. As tastes in music changed and the era of Swing came to an end, Robinson had the opportunity to work with John Coltrane
and Charlie Parker
. At the time, Robinson worked from music charts. John Coltrane said: "Oh, I can play that." But he did not play it as it was on the page. The improvisational style proved incompatible with Robinson's dancing. Robinson said to Coltrane: "Well, look, I don't need the music, because I'm dancing the way I like to dance and the way I wanted to dance." Robinson focused his repertoire on tap as music, "sound tap," that made accompaniment a redundant distraction.
in Philadelphia. Teaching a generation of tap dancers, he taught a series of études that he developed over the course of his career, and he included elements of Telephone in his classes. In this time period, he also danced in a trio with Sandra Janoff, a teacher, and Germaine Ingram, an attorney
. Later, he danced in a duo with Ingram. He was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment of the Arts in 1989 and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts
for Choreography and Performance Arts in 1992.Pew Fellows 1992 http://www.pewarts.org/92/Robinson/index.html Robinson performed Artistry in Taps at the awards concert in the Kennedy Center
in Washington, D.C. In 2000, he won the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
, Governor's Arts Award for Artist of the Year. The University of the Arts named him Distinguished Professor in 2005, a title he held until his death. Much in demand, he was a frequent featured performer throughout the U.S., and danced in Africa, Europe, and Russia.
impersonating Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
imitating Peg Leg Bates
. In the piece, he opens with a basic "Bojangles" time step before jumping into a one-legged Peg Leg Bates step. Known as the fastest taps in the business, Robinson was a master and innovator of the paddle and roll step
. The exact origins of the paddle and roll is not certain. Not seen in tap dancing of the 1920s, elements of it appeared in the 1930s in the dancing of John Bubbles
and Willie Bryant; one story tells of it being brought to New York in 1937 by Walter Green. The paddle and roll solidly entered the vocabulary of tap dancing in the late 1940s. Paddle and roll is a combination of heel and toe taps sounded as sixteenth notes creating a drum roll
sound. From that one basic step, Robinson was able to create an endless number of variations. Fundamentally constructing compositions on the paddle, Robinson was able to subdivide the quarter note
, macro beat into four sixteenth note beats. This also allowed him to easily subdivide the beat further. Most other tap compositions originate from swing eighth note beats, commonly through the flap or shuffle. This fundamental only easily allows tap composers to subdivide the quarter note, macro beat, into triplet eighth note
beats. Employing his innovative subdivision scheme, even when Robinson used patterns common to many tap dancers, the steps fit into these complicated structures on the microscopic scale. So combinations that would be slow, broad gestures in other works become quick, fleeting details in his highly complex, intricate, infectious compositions. "Robinson elevated the art form of tap. The rhythmic intricacy and complexity that he invented developed tap into a mature percussive musical form. So much of what tap dancers do today would not be possible without LaVaughn's innovations." In an encapsulation of a lifetime of thinking about tap dance, his solo piece Artistry in Taps, contains a wealth of the ideas that can be expressed in tap dancing. A completely choreographed piece developed over decades, Robinson drew on all the aspects of his life experience.
was an US tap dance
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
r, choreographer, and teacher.
A virtuoso tap dancer, Robinson perfected a high speed, low to the ground, a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
style of dance that was characterized by elegance, precision, and clarity of sound. In a career spanning over 70 years, he started performing on the street, then in nightclubs, and finally in national and international tap festivals. He was recognized by the National Endowment of the Arts as a "Living National Treasure", received a NEA National Heritage Fellowship
National Heritage Fellowship
The National Heritage Fellowship is a lifetime honor presented to master folk and traditional artists by the National Endowment for the Arts. Similar to Japan's Living National Treasure award, the Fellowship is the United States' highest honor in the folk and traditional arts...
in 1989, a lifetime honor, and a 1992 Pew Fellowship in the Arts
Pew Fellowships in the Arts
The Pew Fellowships in the Arts is an organization established by the Pew Charitable Trusts in 1991 which awards grants to Philadelphia-area artists. The grants provide artists with an economic freedom that presents the opportunity to focus on their individual practices over a considerable period...
.
Street dancing
LaVaughn Robinson was born in South PhiladelphiaSouth Philadelphia
South Philadelphia, nicknamed South Philly, is the section of Philadelphia bounded by South Street to the north, the Delaware River to the east and south, and the Schuylkill River to the west.-History:...
, one of seven brothers and seven sisters. His mother (Catherine Griffin Robinson) taught him his first tap dancing step, the plain time step, at the age of seven. During the Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, Philadelphia was a Mecca of tap dancing; the Nicholas Brothers
Nicholas Brothers
The Nicholas Brothers were a famous African American team of dancing brothers, Fayard and Harold . With their highly acrobatic technique , high level of artistry and daring innovations, they were considered by many the greatest tap dancers of their day...
(Fayard and Harold) and the Condos Brothers (Steve, Frank, and Nick) came from Robinson's neighborhood. Robinson learned from older street dancers, who vied for the best corners for busking
Busking
Street performance or busking is the practice of performing in public places, for gratuities, which are generally in the form of money and edibles...
. The elements of successful busking consisted of the ability to catch the attention of passersby, build a crowd, and then pass the hat. The competition required fierce demonstration of dancing prowess, like a gunfighter riding into town and challenging the local champion, with the winners getting better corners. The ultimate corner in Philadelphia was at Broad and South Streets. The better the dance ability, the nearer to Broad Street the dancer would be permitted busk. Broad Street being the same as 14th Street, the corners at either 2nd and South or 25th and South implied modest dance skills. Although he had no formal dance training, this competitive zeal influenced Robinson's style, and Broad and South became his corner at the age of 13. He also danced and played in a tramp band
Jug band
A Jug band is a band employing a jug player and a mix of traditional and home-made instruments. These home-made instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making of sound, like the washtub bass, washboard, spoons, stovepipe and comb & tissue paper...
(washboard
Washboard
A washboard is a tool designed for hand washing clothing. With mechanized cleaning of clothing becoming more common by the end of the 20th century, the washboard has become better known for its originally subsidiary use as a musical instrument....
, washtub bass
Washtub bass
The washtub bass, or "gutbucket", is a stringed instrument used in American folk music that uses a metal washtub as a resonator. Although it is possible for a washtub bass to have four or more strings and tuning pegs, traditional washtub basses have a single string whose pitch is adjusted by...
, and kazoo
Kazoo
The kazoo is a wind instrument which adds a "buzzing" timbral quality to a player's voice when the player vocalizes into it. The kazoo is a type of mirliton, which is a membranophone, a device which modifies the sound of a person's voice by way of a vibrating membrane."Kazoo" was the name given by...
), and when he was older, he busked in clubs. Robinson earned enough money by busking to buy his own clothes, contribute to paying for the family groceries, and to go to the Earle Theater. It was here that Robinson saw the great tap dancers of the day: Baby Lawrence who performed with Count Basie Orchestra
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
, the Nicholas Brothers with Dolly Dawn and the Dawn Patrol, and Robinson's particular favorite Teddy Hale with Louis Jordan
Louis Jordan
Louis Thomas Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the...
. Robinson admired Teddy Hale's rendition of Begin the Beguine
Begin the Beguine
"Begin the Beguine" is a song written by Cole Porter . Porter composed the song at the piano in the bar of the Ritz Hotel in Paris. In October 1935, it was introduced by June Knight in the Broadway musical Jubilee produced at the Imperial Theatre in New York City.-Music:The beguine music and dance...
, and particularly liked Hale's improvisational style, in which on successive performances, he performed entirely different dances, as opposed to a fixed act—the norm at the time. At this formative age, Robinson met Henry Meadows, an older dancer who took an interest in Robinson, and taught him a close to the ground, fast step called a paddle and roll, which was to be an important element in Robinson's mature style. Henry Meadows partnered with Robinson, on and off, over a period of 40 years.
Club dancing
After Robinson graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in Philadelphia, he served in the Army from 1945-1947. Separating from the Army, he began his career in Philadelphia with booking agents Eddie Suez and Bernie Rothbard of the Suez/Rothbard Agency. As Henry Meadows preferred staying in Philadelphia, Robinson partnered with Howard Blow, a fast tempo tap dancer, and learned from Bobby Jones, another high speed dancer also from Philadelphia. "Howard and LaVaughn" performed in clubs owned by Frank PalumboFrank Palumbo
Frank Palumbo was a restaurateur, local celebrity, humanitarian and power broker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.He is best known as the owner of Palumbo’s, an entertainment complex in South Philadelphia, Nostalgia’s Restaurant and the legendary Click Club...
and opened for Cab Calloway
Cab Calloway
Cabell "Cab" Calloway III was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was strongly associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York City where he was a regular performer....
, for Tommy Dorsey's
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
Band, and on the same stage at the Apollo Theater
Apollo Theater
The Apollo Theater in New York City is one of the most famous, and older, music halls in the United States, and the most famous club associated almost exclusively with Black performers...
with Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Fitzgerald
Ella Jane Fitzgerald , also known as the "First Lady of Song" and "Lady Ella," was an American jazz and song vocalist...
. Robinson also danced with Eddie Sledge and Tony Lopez when he worked for Eddie Smith, a booking agent who handled only trios and quartets. Robinson performed in a close rhythms style, avoiding splits, jumps, and flips of the style of the Nicholas Brothers, after suffering injuries to his legs. He performed at the Broadwood Hotel and Palumbo's
Palumbos
Palumbo’s was an entertainment complex in Italian Market section of South Philadelphia, Palumbo’s included a banquet hall, Nostalgia’s Restaurant and the Click Club. The club was owned by local celebrity/businessman/humanitarian Frank Palumbo...
, then the resort hotels in the Catskills
Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, an area in New York State northwest of New York City and southwest of Albany, are a mature dissected plateau, an uplifted region that was subsequently eroded into sharp relief. They are an eastward continuation, and the highest representation, of the Allegheny Plateau...
, Club Delisa
Club DeLisa
The Club DeLisa, also written Delisa or De Lisa, at State Street and Garfield Avenue, on the South Side, was an important nightclub and music venue in Chicago....
in Chicago, the 500 Club and the Harlem Club both in Atlantic City, New Jersey and throughout Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. As tastes in music changed and the era of Swing came to an end, Robinson had the opportunity to work with John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
and Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
. At the time, Robinson worked from music charts. John Coltrane said: "Oh, I can play that." But he did not play it as it was on the page. The improvisational style proved incompatible with Robinson's dancing. Robinson said to Coltrane: "Well, look, I don't need the music, because I'm dancing the way I like to dance and the way I wanted to dance." Robinson focused his repertoire on tap as music, "sound tap," that made accompaniment a redundant distraction.
Professor of tap dancing
Robinson lived in Boston from 1965 to 1973, then returned to Philadelphia. Robinson started rehearsing at nights in the basement of the Neff Building in Philadelphia with Jerry Tapps, whose daytime job was the building's elevator operator. They developed a routine—Telephone, which was a series of calls and responses exchanged between two dancers. It was Tapps who encouraged Robinson to dance solo and to teach. Tapps inspired Robinson to create his signature solo dance, Artistry in Taps (also known as For Drummers Only). In 1980, he joined the faculty of the University of the ArtsUniversity of the Arts (Philadelphia)
The University of the Arts is one of the United States' oldest universities dedicated to the arts. Its campus makes up part of the Avenue of the Arts in Center City, Philadelphia...
in Philadelphia. Teaching a generation of tap dancers, he taught a series of études that he developed over the course of his career, and he included elements of Telephone in his classes. In this time period, he also danced in a trio with Sandra Janoff, a teacher, and Germaine Ingram, an attorney
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
. Later, he danced in a duo with Ingram. He was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment of the Arts in 1989 and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts
Pew Fellowships in the Arts
The Pew Fellowships in the Arts is an organization established by the Pew Charitable Trusts in 1991 which awards grants to Philadelphia-area artists. The grants provide artists with an economic freedom that presents the opportunity to focus on their individual practices over a considerable period...
for Choreography and Performance Arts in 1992.Pew Fellows 1992 http://www.pewarts.org/92/Robinson/index.html Robinson performed Artistry in Taps at the awards concert in the Kennedy Center
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts center located on the Potomac River, adjacent to the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C...
in Washington, D.C. In 2000, he won the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts is an agency serving the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.Established in 1966, its mission is "to foster the excellence, diversity and vitality of the arts in Pennsylvania and to broaden the availability and appreciation of those arts throughout the state." Each year...
, Governor's Arts Award for Artist of the Year. The University of the Arts named him Distinguished Professor in 2005, a title he held until his death. Much in demand, he was a frequent featured performer throughout the U.S., and danced in Africa, Europe, and Russia.
Family
Robinson and his wife Edna (Martin) were married for 55 years, and they have three sons, LaVaughn Jr., Gregory, and Shelton. He died in Philadelphia of heart failure.Contribution to dance and technique
Had Robinson attended dance school in the 1930s, he would have learned a slower Broadway style of tap dancing. Coming from a street tradition that emphasized speed and flash, his mature style developed from close observation and imitation of the dancers of his day with particular interest in fast dancing. Robinson's encyclopedic knowledge of tap dancers, and his sense of the importance of the history, led him to create dances such as Robinson's Waltz Clog in tribute to Pat Rooney and Robinson's Impersonation of Bill BaileyBill Bailey (dancer)
Bill Bailey was an African American tap dancer. He was the brother of Pearl Bailey. Bill was the first person to be recorded doing the Moonwalk, although he referred to it as the "Backslide", in the film Cabin In the Sky , starring Ethel Waters, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson and Lena Horne...
impersonating Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
Bill Robinson
Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was an American tap dancer and actor of stage and film. Audiences enjoyed his understated style, which eschewed the frenetic manner of the jitterbug in favor of cool and reserve; rarely did he use his upper body, relying instead on busy, inventive feet, and an expressive...
imitating Peg Leg Bates
Peg Leg Bates
Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates was an Afro-American entertainer from Fountain Inn, South Carolina.Bates lost a leg at the age of 12 in a cotton gin accident. He subsequently taught himself to tap dance with a wooden peg leg...
. In the piece, he opens with a basic "Bojangles" time step before jumping into a one-legged Peg Leg Bates step. Known as the fastest taps in the business, Robinson was a master and innovator of the paddle and roll step
Tap dance
Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sound of one's tap shoes hitting the floor as a percussive instrument. As such, it is also commonly considered to be a form of music. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses more on the...
. The exact origins of the paddle and roll is not certain. Not seen in tap dancing of the 1920s, elements of it appeared in the 1930s in the dancing of John Bubbles
John W. Bubbles
John William Sublett , known by his stage name John W. Bubbles, was an American vaudeville performer, dancer, singer and entertainer.-Life and career:...
and Willie Bryant; one story tells of it being brought to New York in 1937 by Walter Green. The paddle and roll solidly entered the vocabulary of tap dancing in the late 1940s. Paddle and roll is a combination of heel and toe taps sounded as sixteenth notes creating a drum roll
Drum roll
A drum roll is a technique the percussionist employs to produce a sustained sound on a percussion instrument. Rolls are used by composers to sustain the sound and create other effects, the most common of which is using a roll to build anticipation.- Snare drum roll :The most common snare drum roll...
sound. From that one basic step, Robinson was able to create an endless number of variations. Fundamentally constructing compositions on the paddle, Robinson was able to subdivide the quarter note
Quarter note
A quarter note or crotchet is a note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note . Often people will say that a crotchet is one beat, however, this is not always correct, as the beat is indicated by the time signature of the music; a quarter note may or may not be the beat...
, macro beat into four sixteenth note beats. This also allowed him to easily subdivide the beat further. Most other tap compositions originate from swing eighth note beats, commonly through the flap or shuffle. This fundamental only easily allows tap composers to subdivide the quarter note, macro beat, into triplet eighth note
Eighth note
thumb|180px|right|Figure 1. An eighth note with stem facing up, an eighth note with stem facing down, and an eighth rest.thumb|right|180px|Figure 2. Four eighth notes beamed together....
beats. Employing his innovative subdivision scheme, even when Robinson used patterns common to many tap dancers, the steps fit into these complicated structures on the microscopic scale. So combinations that would be slow, broad gestures in other works become quick, fleeting details in his highly complex, intricate, infectious compositions. "Robinson elevated the art form of tap. The rhythmic intricacy and complexity that he invented developed tap into a mature percussive musical form. So much of what tap dancers do today would not be possible without LaVaughn's innovations." In an encapsulation of a lifetime of thinking about tap dance, his solo piece Artistry in Taps, contains a wealth of the ideas that can be expressed in tap dancing. A completely choreographed piece developed over decades, Robinson drew on all the aspects of his life experience.