Last night I was amongst a select few Tigers of certain vintage to attend a show of tap dancing by one of our very own, the only Josh that matters, Josh Hilberman. Josh has been doing tap pretty much his whole life and is the impresario of his own school of tap in Liege, Belgium.
Somehow I was unable to bolster the audience with members of my household by referring to the show as "avant-garde tap," which turned out to have been an erroneous characterization, though it was fuelled by Josh's own Facebook promotion of the bit of the show in which he tapped bare-footed on an amplified clogging box in nothing but his underwear and some chain mail and other metal accessories, so at least it was not I who was at fault.
In fact, the show was nothing if not traditional. It was, indeed, a history of tap and Josh's relationship to it, with pictures of the greats of tap history hung on the wall and Josh telling their tales and how he had been blessed to work with and/or learn from them.
A highlight of the show was his performance of "Cappella Josh," a piece which he proudly informed us had entered the vernacular of Barcelona tap and had more or less displaced some other piece as the core of the local canon. How many of us can say the same? He was joined for this by Michelle Dorrance, who is the Michael Jordan of Chapel Hill tap (seems like Gene Medler is the Dean Smith so I think we have to call Josh, who also taught Michelle some in her youth, the Phil Ford). It was beautiful to see them up there. I was glad for the dark of the theater, for your scribe could scarce restrain a wee tear.
Elsewhere, the Canes beat the Golden Knights (who thinks of these names) to even the Stanley Cup Final, while Michael Whatley furiously scribbled notes in preparation for a press conference.
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