SAVION GLOVER

I dance anywhere. I just start moving my feet.

I can produce any instrument, any sound that I can imagine; it may be percussive to the audience, but in my mind it may be a piano, a melody, or a tuba, or a harp, or a harmonica. My mission is to allow people to hear the dance in its purity and up against any other type of sound or music.

A tapper sticks to existing routines. Whereas hoofing... a hoofer pushes the art form.

I don't really care what the visual is looking like. I've gotten away from - not shenanigans, but spectacle.

Frank Sinatra changed people's approach to singing. Ella Fitzgerald, Marvin Gaye, van Gogh, they were all part of movements that allowed people to think about their craft differently. They changed the game. These people changed the game.

Who is Savion Glover? Who is that guy? Good question. I'm a lot of things... Intense... Focused.

Whether it is Jimmy Slyde or Lon Chaney or Gregory Hines, their dance shows what they experienced, what they had to go through.

Tap's foundation is jazz, just like hip-hop, so relating tap-dancing to rap is natural for me.

I'm just blessed, man. I'm just happy to share my art form with everyone. That's cool.

I like to express myself inside of the work that is given, and I let the dancers do the same.

I'm going to continue to tap until I can't move.

I don't think I'm a genius. Not yet.

I actually wanted to be a fireman when I was younger.

Movie making is such a long process, and they only use that one take, although you do it over and over about 30 times. Live theatre is that one time and one time only.

What we're looking for at my school is intellectuals. People who want to talk about the art and be knowledgeable about it. People who want to know the history. Not everybody needs to be performing.

There are many different styles of, and approaches to, tap. My own leans towards a more intellectual view: tap dancing not just for the sake of entertainment but to educate and spark emotion.

It's as if my left heel is my bass drum and my right heel is the floor tom-tom. I can get snare out of my right toe by not putting it down on the floor hard, and, if I want cymbals, I land flat on both feet, full strength on the floor.

I try to convey the musical notes through dance, take on the music.

I don't like being too serious. I'm the type of person that, if the mike isn't in the right place when I go on, I just move it. Other people, they'll be all frantic. I'm more relaxed.

I'm still growing, still learning. I'm still open and vulnerable enough to know there's much more to be taught to me and learned by me. I hope I don't reach my pinnacle on this earth where I think I know it all.

My show mode is that the dressing room is like going into the cockpit. Going down the stairs is like going on the runway, and once we begin performing, it's flight time. I'm just floatin' on that stage.

I don't deal in terminology, I deal with expressions: colors, shapes, tones, characteristics.

I wake up, and I'm in the zone... My performance is the continuation of my life.

The youth coming up is interested in dance now, and they're coming to the shows. That's a blessing for those of us who create.

Whatever you do, just learn about what you're doing; get into it.