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The 24th annual St. Louis Tap Festival, culminating in Saturday’s “All That Tap” performance, is bittersweet this year. The event’s founder and guiding spirit, Robert L. Reed, passed away July 18. So this year’s event has morphed into a memorial to his legacy.
Saturday’s event, beginning at 7 p.m. at the Sun Theater, features the festival’s student participants alongside big names like Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, who served as Michael Jackson’s personal tap instructor; Omar Edwards, 13-time Star Search winner; Broadway performer and instructor Christopher Broughton; and internationally known dancers (and tap shoe designers) Avi Miller and Ofer Ben.
If you’re a tap fan, you probably already have your tickets. But if you’re not, it’s worth considering that tap is more multilayered than you may realize.
“It’s a visual art form, but it’s also auditory,” says Reed’s daughter, Robin Reed, herself an accomplished dancer. “Even with your eyes closed, you experience the dance, the rhythm. It’s so nuanced. It’s like drumming. It’s like making music.”
The event will serve as a tribute to Robert Reed, whose life’s work was tap dancing and teaching tap to others. He founded the Robert L. Reed Tap Heritage Institute to bring tap to the general public, especially underprivileged kids.
“Tap was his life, and this festival was his baby. We just want to carry that torch,” says Robin. “Mostly I’m looking forward to the same love and camaraderie that has always been part of the festival, trading steps and trading stories.”
The festival kicked off Monday, with workshops and master classes. Offerings included a salsa night and open-floor event with live music and improvisation, keeping tap’s old street-corner challenge traditions alive. Thursday’s panel discussion promises old tales and up-to-the-minute advice, with remembrances of Reed and a love of tap—the common thread.
“We have some last-minute people coming in who are longtime students and friends,” Robin says. “We’re putting together a short video show.”
One of her father’s most oft-repeated quotes, which surely will appear in the video clips, applies as much to life as to tap dancing, Robin says. “'The difference between a professional and an amateur is an amateur practices until they get it right. A professional practices until they can’t get it wrong,’” she says, quoting her father. “That’s one of the things I love about tap. It’s these lessons for life.”
Festival attendees see the event—the workshops and performances—as something of a family reunion, she says: “When we see each other, it’s like we were never apart. One of the things we do is sit around and watch old tap clips. It’s the way we learn stories. If you’re serious about the dance, you have to know the history.”
Tap dancing, she says, relies on generosity and improvisation to move forward as much as it does to maintain traditions. Old-timers may tell tales and teach steps, but anyone can create something new out of creativity and play. The art form also includes a lot of sharing.
“The old masters were humble, kind, and willing to share," Robin says. "They were just filled with kindness and love.”
