The written histories of tap dance, its origins, and its development are epically problematic. They, like most histories in America, were written largely from one perspective and mostly by white men. In the face of this, it’s important to remember that tap dance is an art form born of the African Diaspora. As Karida Griffith recently reminded our community, Black American and Diasporic traditions (that have transcended immeasurable oppression in order to survive) are experienced and taught in ways that are foreign to modern European axiology. Most of us tap dancers first learned about our history through stories and personal experiences that have been passed down from elder to child, from mentor to protégé, from one generation to the next; and these stories continue to be passed on orally, just like the dance itself. With that said, the books you will find below address tap dance and tap dance artists in the context of Black art, the jazz tradition, African aesthetics, as well as race, gender, and class politics in a number of different ways - always honoring tap dance as one of the deepest and oldest elements of the Black cultural legacy in America.
Tap dance is the original jazz form, vernacular form, and a form through which the history of race in America can be told.
Jazz Dance
by Jean and Marshall Stearns
The Royalty of Negro Vaudeville:The Whitman Sisters and the Negotiation of Race, Gender and Class in African American Theater 1900-1940
by Nadine George Graves
African Art in Motion
by Robert Farris Thompson
Babylon Girls: Black Women Performers and the Shaping of the Modern
by Jayna Brown
The Black Tradition in American Dance
by Richard A. Long
Steppin' on the Blues: The Visible Rhythms of African American Dance
by Jacqui Malone
Class Act
by Cholly Atkins and Jacqui Malone
Bodies in Dissent
by Daphne A. Brooks
Waltzing in the Dark: African American Vaudeville and Race Politics in the Swing Era
by Brenda Dixon Gottschild
The Black Dancing Body
by Brenda Dixon Gottschild
Digging the African Presence in American Performance
by Brenda Dixon Gottschild
Stomping the Blues
by Albert Murray
Tap! The greatest tap dance stars and their stories, 1900-1955
by Rusty Frank
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When buying books, make sure to resist the mindless comfort of ordering from corporations and instead, buy from and support black-owned bookstores & businesses.