“Dancing is singular because you have to feel it in order to execute it—and rhythm is what it is all about. You've got to have rhythm” (221). The famed tap dancer Lon Chaney summed up tap dancing in these words, illustrating a characteristic that separates percussive dance from other movement forms: it is not only visual but aural. In Tap Dancing America: A Cultural History, Constance Valis Hill gives examples of tap as a form of communication and music, and spotlights many dancers and choreographers who agree, from tapper Michela Marino Lerman, who defines her style as “mak[ing] my feet sing” (349), to Leela Petronio, who, like her mentor Baby Laurence, insists that she “let the taps be their own voice” (355); from Troy and Margaret Kinney's belief that Irish dance's greatest importance is “the music of the shoes” (17), to Hill herself, who describes dancers in a tap jam as “telling stories with their feet” (349).

Hill was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship to write this “intercultural and interracial history that would not be star-centered but people-full” (xiii), and she achieves just that. The narrative is broken up by in-depth and at times captivating biographies of important figures, both well known and obscure. Pioneers such as Fred Astaire, Bunny Briggs, John Bubbles, Honi Coles and Cholly Atkins, Gene Kelly, Baby Laurence, and the Nicholas Brothers are examined, along with more recent stars like Gregory Hines, Savion Glover, and Jason Samuels Smith. Hill also includes many groundbreaking women, both well-known stars, such as Josephine Baker, Ann Miller, Eleanor Powell, and Ginger Rogers, and unknown personalities often overlooked because of their gender and/or race, such as Ada Overton Walker, the “champion lady jig dancer” Kitty O'Neil, and the cross-dressing Alberta “Bert” Whitman and her sister-partner Baby Alice. She also emphasizes modern women who carry on the tradition while creating new forms of tap, including Dianne Walker, Brenda Bufalino, Lynn Dally, Michelle Dorrance, Ayodele Casel, and Chloe Arnold.

All of these dancers are represented fully, with comprehensive accounts of their personal backgrounds, performance techniques, and dancing styles, along with vignettes that bring their personalities to life. The information on MGM film musicals is especially illuminating, with its details of life in the studio and the larger-than-life characters who worked there. However, there are occasional hiccups in the timeline when Hill discusses a significant person who hasn't yet been introduced in the narrative. The frequent appearance of the individual biographies can feel repetitive and disruptive to the story, especially in the chapter on tap's heyday in the 1920s. Although it might have been better to publish the biographies in the back of the book, Hill intends Tap Dancing America to serve as a comprehensive historical narrative rather than as a reference work.

As the subtitle A Cultural History promises, the book considers issues of race, class, and gender in the development of tap dance, examining all the characteristics that make tap, as Margaret Morrison puts it, both a “happy-go-lucky art form” and a “hotbed of conflicts that represent our nation” (359). Particularly fascinating is the discussion of gender. Dance is generally considered to be in the woman's sphere, yet men have dominated tap dance. Women were often unjustly considered too weak to be capable of the driving rhythms and hard-hitting force needed for tap, and it was felt that they lacked the constitution for heavy competition. However, Hill shows how white women, often trained originally in modern dance rather than tap, were largely responsible for the tap revival starting in the 1970s. Simultaneously paying homage to the male masters and proving they could dance with the best, these women strove to redefine tap in their image, emphasizing more “feminine” approaches: a nurturing rather than competitive attitude, rhythmically complex yet expressive movement, a hard-hitting yet feminine demeanor, a skillful yet sexy image. It is in part because women were so vastly overlooked and misjudged that motivated Hill to write this history.

Hill follows tap's growth through all facets of performance—on and off Broadway, in clubs and festivals, on concert stages, and in film and television—tracing its development from a social form to an art form. Presented more or less chronologically, the first chapter follows the early years of tap from “jigging” competitions in the seventeenth century through the jazz-influenced twentieth century. Chapters 2 through 11 are each devoted to a decade in the twentieth century, charting tap's timeline through its early roots, high point, decline, and resurgence. Chapter 12 examines the new millennium, with an emphasis on young up-and-coming new dancers, particularly women. Along the way, Hill describes varying styles of tap, including hoofing or rhythm tap, jazz or modern tap, and show or Broadway tap (though not always naming them as such). She also discusses how changes in musical styles greatly affected tap's development—from ragtime, jazz, and theater music in its heyday; to bebop and rock music playing significant roles in its “decline”; to experimentation with classical, world, and hip-hop music in its rebirth. Hill also explores many well-known composers, musicians, and musical events that were instrumental in tap's development, such as Eubie Blake, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Buddy Rich, and the Newport Jazz Festival, giving specific examples of how particular tap choreography is juxtaposed with a distinct piece of music.

Just as competition and street challenges are a major part of the development and tradition of tap, sketches of some of these challenges form the basic structure of the book. Each chapter begins with a challenge in a specific setting or circumstance, such as Bill Robinson vs. Harry Swinton in the Bijou Theatre in Brooklyn (1900); Darktown Follies vs. Ziegfeld Follies of 1914; Peg Leg Bates vs. Hal LeRoy on the Ed Sullivan Show (1955); or Savion Glover vs. Irish step dancer Colin Dunn of Riverdance on the Grammy Awards broadcast (1997). The challenges are set apart in a different font throughout the book and offer detailed depictions of each event. Although these are interesting to read and present the “who, where, and how” of these challenges, some descriptions are too flowery. I also question some of the early portrayals, as not all are supported by documentary evidence.

Hill does a superb job incorporating the social, cultural, political, and economic factors affecting tap and its participants, and in the process provides excellent insights into the histories of many related disciplines. Interspersed are case studies of specific subjects, such as the comparison between African American slaves and Irish indentured servants, who created “a common culture of the lowly” (10); inventive individuals like Ned Wayburn, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, and Brenda Bufalino, who experimented with sound and form; and a section on the history of metal taps. The book even includes a transcription of the 1989 Congressional Resolution declaring May 25th National Tap Dance Day.

Tap dance is indeed a “centuries-long oral tradition” (xi) of telling stories with the feet. It is a living tradition, passed on orally but not always formally; many claim ownership of its steps, and it is constantly changing and evolving, with regional variations and conflicting opinions. These factors make it difficult to write about dance, yet emphasize the need to document it. Hill does a commendable job in documenting dance steps, often providing excellent descriptions that evoke a clear image in one's mind. However, her descriptions fall short on some occasions when she pitches a battery of step names with simplistic but unclear definitions, and the limited glossary does not always support the narrative, particularly because meanings shift and change over time. Overall, however, Tap Dancing America is very clearly written, intended for a general audience more than an academic one, with language that is easy to understand. It is beautifully illustrated and extremely well researched, and the author cites a wide range of documentary materials from a variety of sources. Hill is a participant as well as an observer, which gives her book an advantage over many other histories of social dance. Tap Dancing America presents an engaging general history of this important dance genre that is sorely needed.