A GAY WHITE MALE STEWARDS A FOUNDATION FOR A BLACK MASCULINE ART FORM… what could go wrong?
—To preserve an art form authentically, one must also preserve cultural conditions and energies that created it.—
A think piece, to get YOU to think!!!
by Dan Mitra
Most of my earliest, fondest, and most impactful tap dance memories come from functions run by the American Tap Dance Foundation. Whether it was Harold Cromer teaching me the Shim Sham, receiving the Tap Future Award with Jimmy Slyde present when I was 11, being a founding original member of the TapCity Youth Ensemble and all the incredible gigs we did in those initial years — my photo was even prominently displayed in the middle of the American Tap Dance Foundation’s studio.
I loved, and still love, the American Tap Dance Foundation.
But if a loved one continues to make mistakes, mismanage, become biased, or lose touch with what made them special — Do you allow them to fall downward in ignorant bliss; or do you care enough to say something because you want them to do better?
I’ve seen the American Tap Dance Foundation go from star-studded summer festivals featuring A-list celebrities — often in part because Gregory Hines was still alive and active — into a year-round business of dance education. Much of that transformation came from the success of the TapCity Youth Ensemble. Warren Craft, Tamii Sakurai, Asha Griffith, Tony Hatcher (RIP), Brandon Hatcher, Samantha Scipio, Byron & Shamfa Tittle, and others put serious legwork into that growth. Notice how many of us had melanin compared to the latest iterations of the Ensemble.
The American Tap Dance Foundation provided us opportunities and helped develop us in certain ways, yes, but many of us were also going far beyond “youth ensemble” level. We were frequently performing alongside adult professional companies and receiving comparable billing. We were not simply students being handed participation trophies; we were helping generate cultural energy and legitimacy for the organization itself.
At that time, ATDF was still renting spaces at Chelsea Studios and Stepping Out Studios. The TapCity Youth Ensemble helped open the doors for them to teach children year-round. We helped create a year-round business model. Due to the level of youth talent, they were able to falsely adopt the merit of all our regular dance teachers elsewhere, as outside of summer/winter intensives (the only thing ATDF offered back then) none of our expertise was because of their doing; yet our skills with the ATDF name slapped on it, gave them credence. Because of the additional revenue and infrastructure that TCYE helped generate, they were eventually able to open the studios most people associate with them now, over by Christopher Street. The very studio where my photograph was prominently displayed since its inception.
That very briefly sums up my relationship with the American Tap Dance Foundation since I was 10 years old in 2001.
Throughout that time, there were more than a few decisions that I found questionable. Over the years, many of those questions started leading me back to one realization:
Tony only hires people or promotes things that he personally likes—-people of his likeness, people who validate his tastes, or people who make him feel liked.
After 25 years — culminating in the recent “25th Anniversary at the Joyce,” which Brian Seibert of the New York Times described as “frustratingly amateurish” — the long-term consequences of these curatorial decisions are becoming harder to ignore. Especially considering that ATDF itself effectively went out of business years ago and the non profit entity is a shell of itself, one starts to realize this is not random. It is a pattern.
Even from the very beginning of the TapCity Youth Ensemble, there were things that confused me. Nearly every child in that room was a stronger tap dancer than Susan Hebach, who was put in charge of us. I remember even Derick Grant asking me directly, “Why is Susan there?”
At the time I was young and just observing. But again, if we run the situation through the lens of the statement above, the logic becomes clearer.
Throughout TCYE we were blessed to learn professional repertoire from legends and innovators: Harold Cromer’s “Opus One,” Brenda Bufalino’s “Flying Turtle,” Michelle Dorrance’s “Eleanor Rigby,” Jared Grimes’ “Got To Move,” Barbara Duffy’s “Speedball,” as well as the Copacetic Suite and numerous historical works.
If you ask me — or many others from TCYE — Jared Grimes’ routine was our favorite to perform. A lot of us thought it was the freshest and most alive piece in the repertoire.
It was also the one we performed the least.
Again, if we apply the pattern already established, the reasoning becomes easier to understand.
Out of all those routines, which one do you think Tony and his like-minded cohorts in charge of TCYE personally liked the least?
Jared’s routine incorporated hip hop dance, hip hop musicality, contemporary Black culture; a different energy than the more vaudevillian aesthetics that Tony gravitates toward.
So if we run this through the prism of Tony’s tastes — older white theatricality, nostalgic vaudeville aesthetics, and what personally comforts him — which routine would naturally be deprioritized?……Jared’s of course.
Ironically, I would argue Jared’s piece was actually the MOST appropriate work for a group of young teenage kids from New York City at that time. Which points to a deeper issue: producers who cannot separate personal bias from effective direction often make poor curatorial decisions (artistically and financially), even while believing they are protecting the art form.
This is why we are now seeing negative reviews surrounding the so-called “25th Tap City Anniversary” — despite the fact that the organization is just a shell entity as they/Tony cannot afford a physical space. At a certain point, what people are reacting to is not one isolated event, but 25 years of curatorial decisions accumulating consequences.
When Tony suppresses the very thing that made tap dance innovative in the first place — young Black people expressing contemporary Black culture through rhythm, style, confidence, experimentation, and individuality — what exactly is left besides the ‘same old schtick’?, to quote Brian Seibert from the NY Times. And from a business perspective, why would someone pay to see a show they’ve essentially seen before?
Tap dance did not become important because it was safe. It became important because Black Americans transformed rebellion into rhythm, individuality, competition, coolness, musicality, improvisation, humor, style, swagger, and social commentary. The form evolved because young Black artists continuously reshaped it in real time.
To preserve an art form authentically, one must also preserve the cultural conditions and energies that created it.
Most of us understand there are different audience expectations between a hip hop, African dance, or tap dance performance versus a ballet or modern dance performance. In Black performance traditions, vocal audience participation — the “woohs,” yells, reactions, call-and-response energy — is not considered disrespectful. It is part of the dialogue between performer and audience. It is affirmation. It is energy exchange. It is culture.
And no, Alvin Ailey does not fully count as a counterexample here. Modern and ballet are still fundamentally white institutional forms, even when populated by Black dancers. A Black body inside a white institutional framework does not automatically transform the framework itself into a Black cultural space.—(a conversation for another day)
The amount of times I personally got side-eyed, corrected, or told to “shhh” by Tony during moments where I was engaging naturally with Black performance energy by providing an audible ‘wooh’ or ‘yessir’ says a lot. To many people this may seem small. To me, it reveals something deeper: discomfort with Black cultural practices themselves.
And that becomes a major issue when you are attempting to steward an art form born directly from Black cultural expression.
Now, I am not calling Tony racist. I think that word is often overused in ways that flatten more complicated realities. However, when someone consistently favors what they personally identify with, consistently distances themselves from what they do not identify with, and repeatedly makes institutional decisions through that lens, patterns inevitably emerge. And those patterns often have racist consequences whether consciously intended or not.
Tony, in my 10+ years of observation and interaction, does not respond well to outspoken, confident, highly talented Black personalities — especially forms of Black masculine energy that do not seek approval or soften themselves for institutional comfort. I’ve witnessed firsthand these interactions and even seen the lowball offers for top-tier Black talent while more docile and/or lesser talent white tap dancers received preferential treatment.
If one looked at the weekly teaching faculty at ATDF for a significant period before its closure, Leonardo Sandoval — a Brazilian man — was essentially the only consistent male person of color teaching there. Think about that for a second in the context of a Black American art form. Derick Grant, Jason Samuels Smith, Dormeisha, Jared Grimes and others; are all NYC based and a phone call away. Shouldn’t the foundation, thought of as the top-tier tap foundation, also have top-tier tap dancers teaching?, not just friends of those in charge. At no point was ATDF the ‘place to be’ for aspiring professional tap dance training; it was always Derick at Steps or Michelle/Jared at BDC, never the ATDF.
And if I am being fully blunt: many of the older Black tap dancers still associated with ATDF often remained because they needed the income and lacked alternative institutional support structures. Meanwhile, I have personally witnessed Tony offer significantly more opportunities, pay, visibility, institutional backing, and professional advancement to dancers who aesthetically and socially aligned with his personal tastes.
And who Tony chooses is problematic.
Tony was a member of Brenda Bufalino’s ATDO, which preceded the ATDF, and informs his opinions, as she is on the board of ATDF.
Let me state this clearly: I love Brenda dearly. She was one of my first tap teachers, and her understanding of dance composition is exceptional. But admiration should not prevent honest analysis.
According to Brenda in her own words in an interview with The Dance Enthusiast, “ I was an Afro-Cuban dancer. That was my specialty. Also, modern dance. I only specialized in tap dance when I was 36 or so.”
She began as an Afro-Cuban and modern dancer and only specialized in tap deep in her 30s. Yet somehow, a woman who entered tap comparatively late would go on to become one of the field's defining institutional figures after studying under Honi Coles.
That should make us ask uncomfortable questions.
Would Honi Coles himself have had the same access to funding, institutional support, media attention, and organizational control that Brenda ultimately enjoyed? Or did being a white woman in a predominantly white arts establishment afford opportunities that a Black man in the 1940-1980s struggled to access?
Honi possessed something Brenda never could: lived ownership of the culture that produced tap dance and thusly elite tap dance skills. Brenda possessed something Honi often did not: access to institutions that historically rewarded whiteness and proximity to white cultural power.
Whether through mentorship, personal closeness, or simply existing within those unequal systems; Brenda emerged with the ability to shape the narrative and infrastructure surrounding tap dance. She would found ATDO. Tony would come through ATDO before creating ATDF. And with that, a lineage of institutional authority over a Black masculine art form passed from one white steward to another.
That is not an indictment of intentions.
It is an observation about power.
When access to institutions consistently flows through people who did not create the culture itself, those institutions inevitably begin reflecting the tastes, aesthetics, and priorities of their gatekeepers rather than the communities from which the art emerged.
Not marginally more. Exponentially more.
Over time, those decisions reshape infrastructure.
They reshape who gets visibility.
Who gets grants.
Who gets teaching credits.
Who gets archival legitimacy.
Who gets marketed as the “face” of the form.
Who gets written into history… like the Tap Dance Hall of Fame.
And eventually you end up with less authentic, less rhythmically rooted, less culturally connected dancers receiving more opportunities, more billing, more funding, and more institutional credibility than they actually earned artistically — largely because they aesthetically align with the sensibilities of the gatekeeper.
That has real consequences for the tap dance ecosystem.
If someone overseeing an institution with the perceived authority and historical importance of the American Tap Dance Foundation consistently makes decisions that skew away from Black masculinity, away from contemporary Black expression, and away from the cultural energies that birthed the form itself — then how can they truly claim to be preserving the legacy of tap dance in its fullest sense?
And lastly, a lot of this becomes even harder to ignore when viewed alongside other practices and decisions made within ATDF over the years.
As mentioned before, Tamii Sakurai was a major foundational member of the original TapCity Youth Ensemble during the years when we were helping generate credibility, visibility, and momentum for the American Tap Dance Foundation within the broader dance world.
Anyone who spent time at the Christopher Street studios remembers seeing Tamii essentially functioning as a receptionist, secretary, office manager, and administrative backbone of the space for YEARS before being given any substantial teaching opportunities. At virtually any given moment, if you walked into ATDF studios during that era, Tamii was arguably the best dancer in the building.
Think about that disconnect.
Similarly, I know of at least one founding member of the original TapCity Youth Ensemble who was told they "needed" to complete ATDF's teacher training program before being allowed to teach there.
That has never sat right with me.
We are talking about someone who had already spent years performing, rehearsing, touring, studying historical repertoire, and helping establish the very youth ensemble that contributed to ATDF's growth and credibility.
If being a founding member of TCYE, learning directly from master artists, and demonstrating those abilities over years of performance still was not enough, then one has to ask what exactly the teacher training program was validating.
I say this as someone who was already regularly teaching at places like Broadway Dance Center, Mark Morris, and Peridance by the age of 18, while later earning a 4.0 GPA in graduate-level dance education coursework.
I’ve seen the Tap Teaching Training materials from ATDF. I laughed at them.
This is not coming from ignorance about pedagogy.
It is coming from recognizing when institutional gatekeeping becomes selective and personal.
To me, requiring a founding TCYE member to receive additional internal validation before being considered qualified to teach speaks to a deeper institutional need for control, approval, and gatekeeping. And even though this example may sound more personal than the broader cultural critiques above, the treatment of founding TCYE members still speaks volumes about the deeper institutional dynamics at play.
How you treat the very people who helped build your foundation says a lot about the values of the institution itself.
This is what makes the situation complicated for me personally.
Tony is absolutely responsible for many good memories within tap dance. I will never deny that. But if I am being honest, he is also responsible for an enormous amount of “wtf?” and “smh” moments when I look back at so many artistic, institutional, and interpersonal decisions over the years.
Honestly, I really dislike this modern mentality that any criticism automatically equals “negative vibes,” toxicity, or bitterness. That mentality has infected a lot of artistic spaces, it’s a sickness.
It’s soft, anti-intellectual, and emotionally fragile/immature.
If you genuinely care about something — especially an art form — then you should WANT honest critique. Because without honest critique, mistakes simply repeat themselves while everyone performs POLITENESS around DYSFUNCTION.
Real love for an art form requires honesty.
Not fake harmony.
Not emotional babysitting.
Not silence for the sake of comfort.
I honestly don’t even know if I care to be part of the solution anymore when it comes to the tap dance community. A lot of the time, tap feels like something that may honestly be best left as a closed chapter in my life.
But I am a hoofer by blood, not by relation.
So I cannot fully separate myself from it, even when I try.
Because of that, seeing the fake love, avoidance of honest critique, social politics, performative positivity, and fear of difficult conversations that have infected so much of the tap dance world genuinely bothers me. I think those dynamics are actively hurting the form.
My goal in writing this is not simply to attack people or vent frustration.
My goal is to get all of us thinking.
Is this really the kind of institution we want representing tap dance at the highest level?
Is this truly the best we can do for one of the greatest American art forms ever created?
Can we not build something healthier, more honest, more culturally connected, more merit-based, and more visionary?
Shouldn’t we WANT to do better?
A lot of people are going to read this emotionally instead of analytically. Some people will react to the tone before actually engaging with the substance. Others simply will not like the messenger — and let’s be honest, the tap dance community can sometimes operate like a complete clown show socially, if you know you know lol.
Since the community is so small, with so few meaningful opportunities, funding streams, institutional affiliations, and gatekeepers, there can almost become a cult-like way of thinking that develops around certain people and organizations. People become afraid to speak honestly because they fear social exile, loss of opportunities, damaged relationships, or becoming “blacklisted” within an already tiny ecosystem.
That type of environment makes it difficult for people to think independently or critically outside the dominant narratives of the community itself.
This is exactly why honest critique becomes even MORE necessary.
I know many of you do not like me.
It takes 2 to tango, and one to shuffle…I never danced to make friends or join a community.
Lol.
But ultimately, we are supposedly all here for the same reason:
WE LOVE TAP DANCE.
Right?
If that is true, then we should want what is best for the dance itself — not what protects individual egos, institutional comfort, social politics, or personal emotional sensitivities.
Tap dance deserves a stronger institution to represent it at the highest level.
Ballet has stronger institutions.
Modern dance has stronger institutions.
Hip hop has stronger institutions.
Jazz has stronger institutions.
Tap dance — one of the most innovative and culturally important American art forms ever created — deserves better stewardship than this.
Do I think the other institutions attempting to preserve tap dance are doing substantially better?
No.
But realistically, ATDF getting itself together may still be our best shot — unless something entirely new emerges.
And if something new does emerge, it cannot simply replicate the same sensibilities, politics, aesthetic biases, and institutional patterns under a different name.
Unfortunately, there are already newer spaces and newer figures within tap dance that seem more interested in continuing Tony’s legacy and sensibilities (white, gay, old schtick) than actually evolving beyond them in ways that would truly benefit tap dance itself.
Tony, if you happen to read this, I heard you were looking for someone to succeed you.
Despite everything I’ve written above, I would genuinely jump at the opportunity to help rebuild an organization I still have a tremendous amount of love for, stewarding an art form I cherish.
After all, if merit is truly the standard we claim to value, then it would make perfect sense for the most accomplished alumni ever to come out of the TapCity Youth Ensemble (concrete facts, even other TCYE members would agree) to give back to the institution that helped shape him. You of all people should be aware that my resume before I turned 20 is levels above those whom you had teaching at ATDF, and even at those newer spaces I have alluded to previously.
Preserving tap dance should never mean complacency or acquiescing to emotions and ego.
It should mean preserving excellence, with integrity.
TAP DANCE DESERVES MORE.
THE DANCE DESERVES BETTER.