December 2, 2004
Gotta dance: UW tappers hoof their way through holiday classic
Mention Scrooge and what comes to mind? Miserly, check; mean, check; unsympathetic, check; tap dancer, ch — huh? Dickens’ famous curmudgeon doing a soft shoe routine? Not the picture we usually have of the old boy.
But if you head down to the Broadway Performance Hall next week, you’ll be able to see just that in A Tap Dance Christmas Carol. And while you’re there, you’ll see a UW librarian, a math lecturer and two students hoofing it as part of the 22-member cast.
A Tap Dance Christmas Carol, which puts not only Scrooge, but the Cratchits, Fezziwig and even those pesky ghosts in dancing shoes, is the brainchild of Anthony Peters and Cheryl Johnson, two professional dancers who own Johnson and Peters Tap Dance Studio in Seattle.
“It all started when we were commissioned by the Auburn Arts Commission to create a Christmas program,” Peters said. “What they wanted was just some dances to Christmas music, but we thought it would be more interesting to do something theatrical.”
The two began thinking of stories that would lend themselves to what they had in mind, and Dickens’ beloved tale seemed like the obvious choice. That first year it took up about half of the program, with the remainder made up of the dances the arts commission had requested.
| A Tap Dance Christmas Carol plays Dec. 10-19 at the Broadway Performance Hall on Capitol Hill in Seattle. For tickets, call 206-325-6500 or visit online at http://www.ticketwindowonline.com. |
But after that, Johnson and Peters struck out on their own with the show, expanding it to a full-length program with a live band and performing it in Seattle. This is its fifth year.
Jennifer Taggart, a lecturer in mathematics, is dancing in her third production, a treat she wouldn’t miss despite the fact that she winds up grading final exams in between performances. And Laura Barrett, a librarian at UW Bothell, is excited about performing for the first time after seeing the show last year. UW student performers include freshman Jessie Sawyers and junior Pam Lenker.
But really, now. How can you get tap dancing into A Christmas Carol? According to Taggart and Barrett, the revised plot goes like this: Scrooge owns and manages a tap dance company. Naturally he drills his dancers hard and they’re always rehearsing with no time off. Well, the dancers want to do a benefit show, a project Scrooge doesn’t approve of and tries to block. His redemption comes through the ghosts, who remind him that he used to dance for the love of dancing, not just for the money.
The love of dancing pretty much describes why Taggart and Barrett are in the show. Both have been at it since childhood, though neither ever considered dancing a career possibility.
“I think my dancing really helps to keep me balanced,” Taggart said. “And it’s not completely unrelated to my work. In my job I give a show. I get to stand in front of 160 students every day and act excited about marginal revenue.”
Barrett works with smaller groups of students, but says getting them excited about critical thinking, database searching and using print encyclopedias requires some razzle dazzle too. She has been devoted to tap dancing since she was in third grade and has found her way to a tap dance studio in nearly every place she has lived. When she came to Seattle last fall, she started lessons at the Johnson and Peters Studio and attended the show last Christmas.
“I just fell in love with it,” she said. “My aunt was with me and we went home and reenacted the dances for my uncle. And I told Anthony (Peters) that I wanted to audition for the show the next time.”
Taggart and Barrett are part of what might be called the chorus in the show, though it’s a dancing rather than a singing group. Peters plays Scrooge and Johnson plays all the ghosts, including Marley. Most of the other dancers aren’t recognizable characters from the story, but they all have names, chosen to honor famous dancers. Taggart is called Ann, for Ann Miller, while Barrett is Eleanor, for Eleanor Powell.
Both say the show is a lot of work, with 15 hours of rehearsal each week for 10 weeks. But they believe it’s worth it.
“Last year tech week was really hard,” Taggart said. “Everyone was exhausted and getting sick. But the minute the opening number ended and we heard the audience reaction, it was like nothing I’ve ever experienced as a performer. It was like an audible gasp, and I teared up every time we did it. Everything we’d gone through that week, all the exhaustion, people getting sick, it was worth everything to hear that gasp.”
Why a gasp? The first scene is a rehearsal scene, Taggart and Barrett say, and one that builds as it goes along.
“Most of it is done in small groups,” Taggart explained. “There’s four over here and then another group of four might traipse by behind them. So the groups move around stage and during a lot of it there aren’t many dancers on stage at once. Then at the end, all of us come out together and fill the stage. And there’s all this rhythm, all these notes and it just builds and builds and builds, then ta da, it’s over. When I see that as an audience member, I get overwhelmed by the noise and the stimulation.”
Barrett has an equally positive feeling. “There’s something about tap dancing that just resonates with me,” she said.
“You can list all the reasons why you like something, but sometimes it’s just a matter of something feeling right. When I started dancing again during graduate school after being away from it for a while, I came home after class and called my parents. I said, ‘Thank you so much for getting me started in tap dance when I was a kid because you cannot imagine how happy it makes me.’”
