Tap Dance Struggles

Bill “Robinson” Bojangles and Michelle Dorrance are both very successful people in the tap industry. They both have made or are making their mark in tap dance. All just at very different times and in very different ways. But without them shaping the art form that is tap dance many believe that it would not be were we see it today.
Michelle Dorrance started dancing at a ballet school that was founded by her mother. While she was there she studied all forms of dance and by the time she was 8 she was accepted into what is known now as the North Carolina Youth Tap Ensemble. She studied with many of the tap greats, such as Gregory Hines, and some of the people who learned from those greats, such as Savion Glover. Having such great mentors and teachers so early on in her education really did shape her into the great tap dancer she is today.
A lot of Michelle’s first big professional performances all happened around her teenage years. She preformed with tap ensembles, in tap dance festivals, and as a soloist as well. She then went on to co-found a group called Ti Dii with Savion Glover and join the cast of STOMP where she ended up being credited as the only
And she does just that by having lectures about tap dance and its history and overall cultural significance at many arts organizations, panels, and major universities. She is described as the breath of fresh air to the tap world with her use of combining tap and more contemporary moves together. The McAurthur Foundation states that “Dorrance maintains the essential layering of rhythms in tap but choreographs ensemble works that engage the entire body: dancers swoop, bend, leap, and twist with a dramatic expression that is at once musical and visual.” So she really adapted this art form into something that is very new and