Savion Glover Redux

I posted about Savion's performance at Celebrate Brooklyn previously. Now I find someone recorded it!



Here's a bit of what I said in my earlier post about this performance:

Bill Robinson made a "B" movie called Harlem Is Heaven in which he does his stair dance in a nightclub. The dance sequence is available on a DVD entitled At the Jazz Band Ball. Glover's performance reminded me of this dance. Robinson performs to the tune "Swanee River." Like Glover, he does not look frequently at the audience. (There are a couple of breakaway shots of the audience in the sequence - and they seem oblivious of Robinson). Like Glover, Robinson does very little with his upper body and his movement is pretty much limited to climbing and descending the stairs. Unlike Glover, Robinson is not portrayed as a member of a musical ensemble - he is accompanied only by piano.

Here's the dance by Robinson I mentioned in my post:



What do you think? By the way, Eleanor Powell (in blackface) does an homage to Robinson's stair dance in the film Honolulu - which is occasionally shown on TCM.

PS - recently Glover has been touring in a show in which he performs to classical music. Take a look: