Bare Soundz

The foot is the unsung hero of the percussion instruments, as anyone who attended last night's performance by Savion Glover now knows. Mr. Glover and his co-performers, Marshall Davis Jr. and Maurice Chestnut, treated a capacity crowd to electrifying, polyrhythmic tap-dances in Duke's Page Auditorium. There was no music except the music made by the performers' feet. Each dancer was on a short platform that was miked, which enabled the audience to hear the remarkable variety of percussive sounds that the three men produced, sounds ranging from a pianissimo tapping to a forte bass and played at all manner of tempi, but mostly presto and then some.

The crowd, I should say, was the most enthusiastic I've ever been a part of at Page. After every dance--and at many points during each dance--people cheered and shouted and carried on in raucous appreciation.

The performance was the second of four performances in Duke Performances' Shuffle and Pick series, a series exploring the African origins of banjo and tap. The next performance in the series will be January 22, 2009, and will feature Otis Taylor, a banjo player.