In this week’s Talking Note, I shared a few memories of a member of the tap dance community. Al Heyward wasn’t the kind of person that desired the spotlight. He wasn’t a professional dancer. He was, however, someone integral to the ecosystem, the web of relationships, that made the tap dance community what it was.
Being a part of a craft that functions as an oral tradition, I’ve experienced an acute understanding of the amount of history, knowledge, that has been lost. With the passing of every dancer, their embodied knowledge of technique, approach, vocabulary, sound, and movement, is gone. That is, except for what was passed on to the next generation of dancers. It never is everything, and so in moving forward, I experience gaps. Gaps of knowledge that would likely have been filled by an elder. This week’s question is what I use to help fill the gaps.
What am I missing?