Chicago has long been a breeding ground for tap dance, and the city’s flagship summer festival, Rhythm World, is back. Now in his second year on the job, director Jumaane Taylor looks to put his personal stamp on the 32-year-old festival, but tap dancers and their fans are likely to see familiar faces as some of the nation’s best hoofers once again convene in Chicago for three weeks of classes, workshops and performances.
Rhythm World kicks off July 8. There will be free public performances on July 9 at the DuSable Black History Museum, July 16 at Beverly Art Center, July 20 at Navy Pier and July 23 at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Purchased tickets are needed for the July 13 exhibition at Jazz Showcase in Printers Row — a festival highlight well worth the investment — and a gala on July 18 at the MCA.
“I was really trying to bring the old feeling back during the first year,” said Taylor, who relaunched the in-person festival in 2021 after a truncated, online version took place in 2020. His main goal was to bring “tap dancers to Chicago that represented a variety of generations and were completely open to teaching anyone that was in the room.”
If there’s a theme this year, it’s about digging in. As with all artists, the pandemic forced Taylor to look inward. He took time to reevaluate himself and examine his artistic goals. It also caps his first season as artistic director of the Chicago Human Rhythm Project, the umbrella organization that presents Rhythm World and several other programs promoting tap and percussive dance.
On the surface, much of Rhythm World may look the same, but underneath, Taylor has put into motion a plan to preserve tap’s living legacies.
“That’s been the Chicago motto: Keep going forward while respecting the tradition,” Taylor said.
An example: Dianne “Lady Di” Walker aims to create a new work that will remain in Chicago to serve as a training exercise for future generations — a 2022 Shim Sham Shimmy, if you will.
“Not to call any of the classes disposable,” Taylor said, “but sometimes when you go to class, after class, after class the information can go over your head. We want to highlight those nutritious choreographic or improvisational elements that have been created for us.”
The Human Rhythm Project (now called the Chicago Human Rhythm Project, CHRP or “Chirp”), officially began in 1990. Founding director Lane Alexander and his partner, Kelly Michaels, put together a series of workshops (attended by 52 students) and a single performance at Northwestern University. Proceeds benefited Open Hand/Chicago, a service organization providing meal delivery to people affected by AIDS. Michaels died of AIDS-related illness in 1995.
Alexander’s tenacity and talent for capacity building created an infrastructure that contributed to Chicago’s reputation as one of the top places for tap. Name a tap dancer in Chicago; odds are they’re one or two degrees of separation from CHRP. Festival participation peaked at 40,000 people in 2007. That was also the first year CHRP’s budget exceeded $1 million — a big number for an organization of its size and type.
Of course, tap was here long before Texas transplant Alexander arrived in the 1980s. Much of the training took place in one of two South Side locations: Tommy Sutton’s Mayfair Academy and the Sammy Dyer School of the Theatre. Taylor started dancing at Sammy Dyer’s, training with Geraldine Williams, Idella Reed-Davis, Runako Jahi, Jimmy Payne Jr., George Patterson III and Bril Barrett. Taylor was a scholarship student at Rhythm World and an original member of M.A.D.D. Rhythms, the company Barrett and Martin Dumas III formed in 2001.
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