Tapping a Wellspring of Talent

Songs Unwritten: A Tap Dancer Remembered

By David Wadsworth

At the Agassiz Theater

Free showing February 10, 8 p.m.

TO most people, the term "tap-dancing" conjures images of saccharinesweet little girls in sequined costumes, shuffle-stepping in time to "The Good Ship Lollipop" as part of a painfully long church talent show.

But a growing number are discovering the legacy of the tap innovators who, during their heyday in the thirties and forties, took their art as far and regarded their art as seriously as better known contemporaries like Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie did with music.

One such man was Leon Collins, who is the subject of Songs Unwritten: A Tap Dancer Remembered, a documentary by David Wadsworth '84. The project is the first in a series for The Leon Collins Archive, Inc., which Wadsworth hopes will bring recognition to Collins and other lesser-known jazz performers.

Wadsworth began work on Songs in 1984 after Claire Mallardi, a Radcliffe instructor and coordinator of dance, suggested the man as a subject. Collins, after a 14-year career hiatus, had opened a dance studio in 1977 and later joined the faculties of the Radcliffe Dance Program and the Harvard Summer Dance Center.

Wadsworth caught up with him in Brookline where, in 1982, he had started the Leon Collins Dance Studio. After a 40-minute interview with the dancer, Wadsworth became impressed by "the man's vernacular and approach to art... It was clearly the start of something much bigger."

Wadsworth filmed classes at the studio, interviews with Collins and his friends and associates and, most importantly, dozens of hours of performances, including Collins' interpretation of "Flight of the Bumblebee/Begin the Beguine" at the 1984 L.A. Olympic Arts Festival. Several of these performances are presented uncut in the documentary, and it is through them that we get a feel for the artistry Collins brought to his work.

TO appreciate the innovation involved, it is important to understand that Collins was not technically a tap dancer, but a hoofer. Whereas a tap dancer concentrates on the effect of movement, a hoofer expresses himself through percussion, creating melodies with his feet. As Dizzy Gillespie explains during the film, "Leon was one of the pioneers of the bebop of dancing, along with Teddy Hale and Baby Laurence. They would dance one of my solos or one of Charlie Parker's, and they'd do it perfectly. They used to knock me out, man."

Songs is more than just an introduction to tap, however. It offers a true-life view of the period depicted in films like The Cotton Club, letting us savor the excitement while also exposing the effects of racism on the predominantly Black artists involved. We can appreciate the strong will and unshakeable devotion to craft, mixed with supressed anger and memories of injustice that made up the character of men like Leon Collins.

Collins easily steals the show during interviews as well as the performance sequences. He covers his obvious toughness with a friendly demeanor and a sharp wit, as well as enthusiastic interest in the project. "He always seemed to know more about what I should be doing than I did," Wadsworth recalls. "He wanted to get it down. He wanted so desperately to be recognized for what he had done."

There are several memorable scenes in the documentary that give us a strong feeling for the man, as when he performs in an empty theatre for a janitor sweeping the stage, or when a woman who knew him talks about his unquenchable thirst for Bugs Bunny cartoons.

A short time after Wadsworth began the project, Leon Collins was diagnosed as having cancer, and he died in 1985. Songs Unwritten: A Tap Dancer Remembered goes a long way toward keeping the memory of Collins and his fellow innovators alive.