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" I was a drummer in a group called Three Plus. We were performing at a club in New York, and my mother signed me up for tap classes. I fell in love from the door... so you can blame it on my mother. "

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" I like to be around dancers who are totally committed to the art form, totally committed to the men and women around them. "

Savion Glover

Men And Women

Women

Dancers

" I want to share what I have, and I'd rather share it with people that are a little bit more open-minded. "

Savion Glover

Little

Open-Minded

" The sound of tap is not 'clickety clickety tap tap,' this monotone thing. The sound of tap has depth. We want you to hear the different highs and lows, the bass, the trebles and the melodies, if you can. "

" I go for a nice walk in my neighborhood and search for vinyl, old jazz, classics. Then I go home and listen to them. "

" 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. "

" There's a whole new generation who know about tap dancing thanks to 'Happy Feet.' "

" My mom always had me and my brother watching old Fred Astaire movies. "

Savion Glover

Brother

Always

" Jimmy Slyde was more a musician than a dancer; Greg Hines was more musician than dancer. "

Savion Glover

Dancer

Jimmy

" I used to think I had this responsibility to carry on this tradition. Now I just feel like I have to keep the dance out there, keep it in the public eye. "

" I'm a basketball freak. "

Savion Glover

Freak

Basketball

" La Cave was a great platform for me to learn and be able to listen in on conversations and just get a lot of notes and teachings from those older guys. "

Savion Glover

Learn

Listen

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

Savion Glover

Jimmy

Dance

" For me, the importance in learning about the dance is using it as a voice. It's not about a step, it's about a way to express oneself. "

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

" 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. "

" When you find real jazz on the radio dial, it comes in all static-y. It's just like tap dancers. You have to go uptown to find the real hoofers. We only come to midtown if we're called upon. "

" 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. "

" I love riding my ATV 450. "

" 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. "

" 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.' "

Savion Glover

Dance

Mom

" I'm happy that people think of me as the greatest tap-dancer that ever lived. But it's just a rumor. Because the greatest dancer that ever lived knows everything, and I don't. I'm still learning. I still have a lot of work to do. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Savion Glover

Say

People

" The Nicholas Brothers were the best tap-dancers. I'm not talking about their flash-dancing, I'm talking about tap-dancing. They were really saying something with their feet. "

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

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

" I dance anywhere. I just start moving my feet. "