Savion Glover’s BRiNG TiME BaCK @ NJPAC, an original song-and-dance piece featuring a cast of 45 talented New Jersey youth ages 6-18, will premiere at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s Victoria Theater on Sunday, September 18 at 6 p.m.
Newark’s own Savion Glover, the Tony Award-winning choreographer and tap dance legend, has created this new piece for NJPAC’s Arts Education Department. Glover, who is NJPAC’s Dance Advisor, also serves on the Board of Directors.
Set in a jazz club, BRiNG TiME BaCK @NJPAC is a nightlife fantasia built around the stories of the club’s patrons, evoking the best of yesterday with a modern, contemporary spin. The score spans classic standards, such as “Summertime” and “Stormy Weather,” to spirituals (“Jesus on the Mainline”), to more contemporary hits, including “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.” An onstage house band includes students of NJPAC’s Wells Fargo Jazz for Teens program. Glover and his cast have been rehearsing throughout the summer.
“It’s an old-school club with a new-school environment,” says Glover. “We’re using these young voices to remind one generation of how a jazz club once was, and at the same time inform a new generation of what that club could have been.”
Savion Glover is celebrating his 32nd year in show business. His Broadway credits include The Tap Dance Kid, Black and Blue, Jelly’s Last Jam, and Bring in `da Noise, Bring in `da Funk. Movie-goers have seen him in Tap with Gregory Hines and Sammy Davis, Jr., Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, and the Academy Award-winning Happy Feet and Happy Feet 2, both of which he choreographed. Most recently, Glover was recognized with a Tony Award nomination for his choreography in the Broadway musical Shuffle Along.
All tickets are available for only $12. Visit njpac.org or call 1.888.GO.NJPAC (466-5722).
Glover makes no secret of the fact that many of the pioneers of tap pushed him forward by mentoring or inspiring him from the age of 7: names like Gregory Hines, “Buster” Brown, Jimmy Slyde and Dianne Walker. He pays tribute to their talents in an original presentation, Savion Glover’s Chronology of a HooFer, coming to NJPAC on Saturday, Oct. 8th.
