Tap-dance superstar Savion Glover balances on his toes in a skillful yet stripped-down, intimate showcase at The Joyce. (
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Savion Glover’s stripped down. Not literally — he isn’t channeling his inner Magic Mike, or even his inner Michael Jackson — as he did a few years back when he had an onstage meltdown, rambling ominously following a bad review.
Instead, for Tuesday’s opening of his 10th year at The Joyce, Glover’s gone back to basics. His new show, “STePz,” has simple costumes, no props, no plot, almost no talking. It’s just five hoofers — two men and three women — dancing to everything from Shostakovich to the theme from “Mission: Impossible.” The result is a tight show with some of the most skillful tap you’ll ever see.
There are plenty of steps in “StePz,” both the tap variety and actual stairs. Glover does several duets with Marshall Davis Jr., each going up and down his own small multilevel platform in a way that’s part conversation, part competition.
The whole cast lightly sent up ballet in a twinkle-toes moment to Shostakovich’s “Chamber Symphony,” but Glover also tapped into how differently the two dances use music. Ballet responds to music, but tap also creates its own rhythms that stand alongside it.
When Glover danced to jazz great John Coltrane, he went his own way at times. As well as the song, he was also working to a rhythm in his head — the tap version of speaking in tongues.
But, tapping to Shostakovich, all five dancers were bang on, and it was one of the few times you could see — if barely hear — Glover talk. Rather than counting like a ballet dancer might, he was scatting syllables to keep in time.
The former “Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk” star can happily disappear into the group, but he’s still a virtuoso. At 39, he can fill a room with sound while barely moving, or create intricate rhythms without breaking a sweat. You watch and wonder exactly how he does it.
When he tapped up and down the steps, they seemed like a multilevel xylophone. He banged on the side with his foot as if the stairs were a conga drum, yet didn’t break a sweat. One sour note — the main dance platform is so loudly miked that if more than one person tapped on it, all you heard was a muddy cacophony.
If you’re looking for a big Broadway tap show, this isn’t it. Glover’s version of tap is intimate: He’s doing his thing — not performing for you. You get to observe.
For some people that’s not enough, but for others, it’s a privilege.