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" I used to think I could save tap. But tap was here way before I was, and it's going to be here after I'm gone. "

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" I come from a long line of people who express themselves through the dance. I come from a long line of people who create music through their feet. "

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" There's no dancer alive better than those of the 1950s and 1960s. It's only the energy that changes. Every now and then, someone like me comes along, and people say, 'Oh, this guy is this new thing.' But that's not so. There is no me without them. The tradition just goes on. "

" Just like a comedian has a certain joke or a jazz musician has a riff that they know will get the crowd, a tap dancer always has a step. "

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

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" I feel it's my duty, my job, now to allow people to hear the dance to different genres of music, to ensure audiences have the chance to listen to tap dancing up against all these other styles. "

" I did a production called 'Classical Savion,' where I did some Shostakovich, Mendelssohn, Bach, Vivaldi, and all these great pieces. "

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

" I try new stuff every time I perform. I have steps I do that I know are definite, and stuff I can make up right then and there and then forget. "

" Every now and then, someone comes along - we used to call it 'New Jack' - tries to do something new, tries to take all the credit, without acknowledging the past. "

" When you think about John Coltrane, in my opinion - and I think I share this opinion with a lot of people - his approach to music changed other people's approach to music. "

" I grew up watching Gregory Hines banging out rhythms like drum beats, and Jimmy Slyde dancing these melodies, you know, bop-bah-be-do-bap, not just tap-tap-tap. Everyone else was dancing in monotone, but I could hear the hoofers in stereo, and they influenced me to have this musical approach towards tap. "

" I am realizing and accepting my role as a tap dancer in this world is not only to tap dance for the sake of performance, but through tap dance be able to share and spread a message and congregate with people I would not necessarily be with had it not been for dance. "

" I see myself helping the next generation of dancers who come along, helping them to keep the dance focused, so we don't get into a position where they're saying in 2050, or whatever, that around 2001 or 2002 or something the dance died. "

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" 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. "

" My mom couldn't afford dance shoes, so she put me in these old cowboy boots with a hard bottom so I could get some sound out. I used them for seven months. When I finally got real tap shoes, I was nervous. I kept moving my feet, thinking, 'Oh, so this is how it's supposed to sound.' "

" It wasn't until I did a musical revue in Paris in the 1980s called 'Black and Blue,' and met the great men and women responsible for the progress of tap dance, that my relationship with the dance really began. "

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