Passing On: The Old Head/Younger Dancer Mentoring Relationship in the Cultural Shpere of Rhythm Tap.

This article examines the effectiveness of the traditional "old head" /young person mentoring relationship reported to be disappearing as a cultural tradition in center-city Black communities by a number of historians and social scientists. This study, based on ethnographic field work, describes an example of highly successful mentoring in the rhythm tap community, framing it within the role traditionally played by mentoring in the African-American community generally and within the broader history of tap dance that brought the mentoring process about. It has examined the key role played by elder tap dancers in passing on the history, steps, and survival values associated with rhythm tap, the benefits of mentoring to the mentors and to the younger dancers mentored, and the ways in which the hard work ethic, cooperative, and creation-friendly values associated with tap as a performance became generalized to an artistic social community and lifestyle. Entering the dark warm room with cool, soft lighting, my senses are greeted with the comforting sound of traditional jazz. All eyes are focused on a small stage of moving bodies and seated musicians improvising jazz standards from the J940's. The patrons are both seated and standing at a bar to the right. Glossy Hollywood publicity shots of stars line one side of a wall and posters of famous jazz singers and musicians line the other. A white baby grand piano lends elegance to the dark makeshift room reminiscent of the Latin Quarters of Paris in the 1950s. I look around the long, small, dark basement room at the international coterie of tap dancers from the United States, France, Austria and Japan. Drinking, chatting, eating, and eagerly awaiting the show to begin, each person pays close attention to the door hoping for a surprise visit from a tap celebrity. The performing dancers are seated in a section to the right of the stage while others join their friends at the bar or at tables close to the stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]