Savion Glover
On the opening night of Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk at the Ambassador Theatre on April 25, 1996, a twenty-two-year-old tap dancer from Newark, New Jersey, hit the stage with a ferocity that made the floorboards buckle. The sound was unlike anything Broadway had ever heard — not the bright, cheerful clatter of Gene Kelly or the suave shuffles of Fred Astaire, but a deep, percussive roar that channeled hip-hop, jazz, funk, and fury. By the final curtain, the audience was on its feet. The critics reached for superlatives they hadn't used for a tap dancer in decades. Savion Glover had single-handedly dragged tap dancing into the twenty-first century, and he was just getting started.
A Prodigy from Newark
Savion Glover was born on November 19, 1973, in Newark, New Jersey. His mother, Yvette Glover, a singer and actress, enrolled him in drumming classes at age four, recognizing her son's extraordinary sense of rhythm. But it was at the Newark Community School of the Arts that a tap dance class changed everything. By age seven, Savion was studying with the legendary tap masters — Gregory Hines, Jimmy Slyde, Lon Chaney, Buster Brown, and Sammy Davis Jr.'s mentor, Sandman Sims. These men, the living links to tap's golden age, adopted Glover as their protege and heir.
At ten, Savion was cast in the Broadway musical The Tap Dance Kid (1984). At twelve, he became the youngest-ever recipient of a leading role at Broadway level when he starred in Black and Blue (1989), a celebration of Black music and dance. At fifteen, he was a regular on Sesame Street, demonstrating tap to a generation of children. His technical ability was already supernatural — his feet moved with a speed and clarity that older masters found astonishing — but what truly set him apart was his musicality. Glover didn't dance to music; he was music, using his feet as a drummer uses sticks, improvising complex polyrhythms in real time.
Hitting: The Revolution of Rhythm
Glover coined his own term for what he does: "hitting." It's a word that captures the aggressive, grounded, full-body percussive approach that defines his style. Where classical tap tends toward lightness and elevation — dancers floating above the floor — Glover drives into the floor, producing a sound that is deep, resonant, and unmistakably rooted in African American musical traditions: jazz drumming, hip-hop beats, and the ring shouts of the Southern Black church.
Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk (1996), conceived by director George C. Wolfe and choreographed by Glover, was the full realization of this vision. The show traced the history of African Americans through the rhythm of their feet — from the slave ships to the jazz age to the streets of contemporary cities. It won four Tony Awards, including Best Choreography for Glover (at age twenty-two, making him one of the youngest Tony winners in history), and it ran for over 1,100 performances.
After Noise/Funk, Glover continued to push tap into new territory:
- Classical Savion (2001) — Glover improvised live alongside classical orchestras, treating his feet as a solo instrument.
- STePz (2005) — A raw, stripped-down concert of pure rhythm performed on a bare stage.
- Happy Feet (2006) and Happy Feet Two (2011) — Glover provided the motion-capture tap dancing for the animated penguin Mumble, introducing his artistry to millions of children worldwide.
- Om (2012) — An evening-length meditation on rhythm and spirituality.
His influence on the next generation of tap dancers — Michelle Dorrance, Jason Samuels Smith, Ayodele Casel — is immeasurable. He taught them that tap was not a nostalgic relic but a living, evolving language capable of expressing the full range of contemporary Black experience.
Legacy: The Living Master
Now in his early fifties, Savion Glover continues to perform and teach with an intensity that belies the decades of impact his feet have absorbed. He runs workshops, mentors young dancers, and performs in intimate venues and major concert halls alike. In 2016, he returned to Broadway to choreograph Shuffle Along, and he has collaborated with artists ranging from Wynton Marsalis to Prince.
Gregory Hines, who mentored Glover from childhood and called him "possibly the best tap dancer that ever lived," passed away in 2003. But the tradition Hines and the other masters entrusted to Glover is in powerful hands. Every time Savion Glover takes the stage, he honors the lineage — the Hoofers' Club, the Cotton Club, the vaudeville circuits where Black tap dancers invented an American art form — while propelling it forward with a force that shakes the room.
"Tap is my weapon," Glover has said. "It's my way of speaking." And when he speaks, the whole world listens with its feet.