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Transcription: [00:34:04]
{SPEAKER name="Interviewer"}
Wide variety of dance forms, which we've seen some more contemporaneous, the stepping, and of course the breakdancing and then we also are fortunate to have another form endemic to Blacks; the tap.
[00:34:26]
Now I’m wondering if we could just start by giving the artist a chance to give us some historical sociological statement on the evolution of the art and of that particular form- of this form.
[00:34:40]
Mr. Robinson is handing the mic to-
[00:34:42]
{SPEAKER name="LaVaughn Robinson"}
Well I want to give it to somebody that know what they talking bout
[00:34:44]
{SPEAKER name="Interviewer"}
That’s why we have you having the mic.
[00:34:46]
{SPEAKER name="Robinson"}
Thank you very large.
[00:34:47]
[Laughing]
[00:34:49]
{SPEAKER name="Robinson"}
What um...Well for- Number one my name is LaVaughn Robinson, this is Germaine Ingram and Sandy Janoff. Did I pronounce that right?
[00:35:00]
{SPEAKER name="Janoff"}
Sure.
[00:35:01]
{SPEAKER name="Robinson"}
Robinson: Right, right. And we started tap dancing at a young age.
[00:35:06]
{SPEAKER name="Janoff"}
(Laughing) Speak for yourself.
[00:35:08]
{SPEAKER name="Robinson"}
Well um, I started tapping at a young age, she told me to speak for myself. She- [aughing] one of them South Philadelphia smarties [laughing] And um tap was always learned on the street, you learned how to tap dance on the street.
[00:35:29]
Not in those schools, ‘cause they didn’t have no schools at that time, and the schools that they did have you couldn’t afford to go know how.
[00:35:38]
So you hung on the streets in the evenings and watched all the other tap dancers that danced on the street. And you learned in that fashion.
[00:35:46]
I’ve been dancing for- at that time, when I learned how to dance on the street I’d been dancing about 3 months, you know, and I picked it up [[emphasis]] vaguely, until I start [[emphasis]] hanging with the master dancers. And we had quite a few master tap dancers in Philadelphia at that time, am I right, sir?
[00:36:04]
{SPEAKER name="Unknown"}
[inaudible]
[00:36:05]
{SPEAKER name="Robinson"}
Good.