No, the emotional range of tap dancing is not unlimited: it cannot express tragedy or pain or fear or guilt; all it can express is gaiety and every shade of emotion pertaining to the joy of living. (Yes, it is my favorite form of the dance.)
—AYN RAND, 1971
Tap will forever be a nostalgia thing. It’s an art that couldn’t go anywhere.
—PATRICK O’CONNOR, dance critic, 1977
If the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, “tradition” should be positively discouraged … It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour.
—T. S. ELIOT, “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” 1919
Savion Glover and Gregory Hines in Jelly’s Last Jam, 1992