Milestone Films announces the restoration from the original camera negatives and the theatrical release of No Maps on My Taps and About Tap, two seminal documentaries by George T. Nierenberg that helped revitalize tap dancing in the early 1980s. The films will premiere July 7 at the Quad Cinema to coincide with New York's annual citywide Tap City festival.
The golden age of tap dancing spanned the first half of the twentieth century and featured extraordinary artists, including Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, John Bubbles, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and Eleanor Powell. But by the 1950s, many fans were staying home to watch television and the nightclubs that supported tap dancers were starting to close. As the popularity of rock n' roll grew, audiences moved away from the jazz and Broadway music that tappers relied on. At the same time, young choreographers like Bob Fosse were creating a new form of dance for musical theater - less tap oriented and more related to modern dance. Increasingly, tap was performed by only the old hoofers and was considered nostalgic, even comedic. Fittingly, the last chapter of Marshall and Jean Stearns' 1968 seminal history Jazz Dance was titled "The Dying Breed."
Two events re-energized the art form. In 1978, 33-year-old Gregory Hines became an "overnight" sensation with his Tony-nominated performance in the Broadway musical, Eubie! Gregory - along with his brother Maurice - created a brilliant, energetic, and powerful tap style that exuded a new kind of cool. Then, in 1979 came the release of Nierenberg's exhilarating landmark film, No Maps on My Taps, featuring music by Lionel Hampton and the dance artistry of Bunny Briggs, Chuck Green, and Harold "Sandman" Sims. Nierenberg's real love for the dancers and their art made this joyous documentary a hit with audiences and critics. The thrilling talent and ebullient charisma of the three dancers shines through in every fame. No Maps on My Taps showed on multiple television outlets in the US and abroad and screened in theaters and college campuses. The three veteran tap dancers performed live with the film all over the world (sometimes leading tap dance parades throughout the towns). Tap dancing gained a huge multitude of new fans and inspired thousands of young dancers to put on tap shoes.
In 1984, Nierenberg directed a follow-up film broadcast on PBS, About Tap, with Gregory Hines and featuring Jimmy Slyde, Steve Condos, and Chuck Green. The film beautifully explores the artistry of tap dance, delineating the art form's various styles and traditions. About Tap became a seminal film for tappers worldwide - empowering dancers to learn from the masters - and more importantly, encouraging them to find their own unique styles in tap and life.
Nierenberg went on to explore the world of gospel music with Say Amen, Somebody, one of the most beloved and acclaimed music documentaries of all time. It played in theaters throughout the world and was heralded as one of the "Ten Best Films of the Year" by numerous publications.
For many years, all three of the Nierenberg's films fell out of active distribution. Now, the filmmaker has licensed his astonishing documentaries to distributor Milestone Films. Using the original camera a/b rolls to digitally restore No Maps on My Taps and About Tap (with the help of Metropolis Post), Milestone is now able to make these joyous and incredibly moving films available to audiences again. No Maps on My Taps and About Tap will screen as a double feature in theaters around the country, starting with the July 7-13 premiere at the Quad Cinema in New York. The restored films' debut coincides with Tap City: The New York City Tap Festival, an annual event featuring some of the world's best tap dancers*. The funding for the restoration of No Maps on My Taps was provided by Turner Classic Movies. Constance Valis Hill on George T. Nierenberg when he was presented The American Tap Dance Foundation "American Tap Dance Preservation Award"
"George T. Nierenberg became interested in tap dance in the late 1970s when no other filmmaker with the exception of Brenda Bufallino... were interested in tap dance. George Nierenberg's films on jazz, tap, gospel and blues ... preserved no only the sight and sound of our masters and mastresses, but made iconic "how" we remember them. How can we possibly forget in No Maps in My Taps, Bunny Briggs with tears rolling down his face, sitting quietly in the green room of Smalls Paradise in Harlem, as his elderly uncles tell how his earnings as a child tap dancer, the family sole's source of income, put food on the table and paid the rent. Howard "Sandman" Sims, jamming in the back alleyway with a young boy, passing the tradition of jazz hoofing to young dancers in his Harlem program... Chuck Green, sitting quietly in a rehearsal room, philosophizing on how, if you drop your heels, you can get a more floating quality, "like a leaf coming off a top of a tree." Changing the quality of the sound and giving it a "tonation" that could tell the story of your life.
To call George Nierenberg a nonfiction documentary filmmaker is to do his artistry a great disservice. Not mere reportage, George's filmmaking is an act of love. He was committed to telling the unique story of our tap dancing lives. Well, why tap dance, George? Was it your mother, Julie Juliette who was a child tap dancer, in which the highlight of her career as a child tap dancer was dancing for the inmates of Sing Sing Prison? Was it when you met Sandman Sims and he embraced you fully and introduced you to the brotherhood of rhythm tap dancers that you sensed the pathétique, the deep-souled beauty of these bluesmen? Making these films was George's dharma. The fated path in this lifetime toward one which one finds one's divine self."
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