Listening down: the future of tap is looking up.

When Savion Glover's Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk opened in 1995, it changed the way audiences think of tap. Now, almost a decade later, Glover, 30, is in the limelight again. In three weeks of sold out shows at The Joyce Theater in New York City over the holidays. Glover not only tapped, but sang, talked to the audience, and wore an elegant suit--what some consider to be a major departure from his baggy pants, straight-dancing stance, listening down instead of looking up.

Glover brings a genius to tap that has raised the art form to a new level in the public eye and car. Dance historian Sally Sommer, who attended a recent performance by Glover at Florida State University, says, "The college audience was totally in love with him, almost frantic in its adoration. I've never seen that kind of superstar response given to a tap dancer."

In fact, his brilliance so dazzles, it is easy to lose sight of other tap energy. But tap is proliferating, largely owing to the bootstrap efforts of tappers across the country and now abroad as well. New trends are emerging--from the way tap is taught, danced, and choreographed, to the places where it is seen and heard. The art is evolving in many directions, like a great tree with branches that now reach around the world.

For one thing, women are coming to the fore in what was once a male dominated field (see accompanying profiles on Roxane Butterfly and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, the first female to join the cast of Noise/Funk). Also a younger generation of tap artists is coming of age and the newcomers have astounding technique. They're learning faster as people know how to teach tap better. Brenda Bufalino, one of the pioneers of jazz tap training, says, "There was a time when we didn't think we could teach this stuff."

Tony Waag, founder/executive director of The New York City, Tap Festival, says that has changed. "The techniques of teaching have really advanced. The vocabularies have been handed down, analyzed, and dissected."

Teaching, for instance, How emphasizes musicianship and encourages students to view tap as instrumentation. Jazz/rhythm tap, the style exemplified by Glover, is based more on sound than sight, on hearing and responding to rhythms than watching and imitating steps. "Relationships with musicians have changed as dancers have become more musically literate," says Bufalino.

Opportunities to learn have increased as festivals and intensives have grown in quantity and quality. The International Tap Association now tracks twenty-five such events worldwide, many with a depth and sophistication of offerings nearly unimaginable in 1986, when the festival movement began. They now play a major role in not only training, but also performance presentation, and the cross-pollination of styles.

With the rise of this interchange, tap style wars once waged between Broadway/studio tap and jazz/rhythm tap are subsiding. What originally differentiated show tap was a more presentational quality where arms and spatial design and the seeing of tap dancers were emphasized. More important to jazz tap was the rhythmic depth, complexity, density and the hearing of tap dancers. Now, as Jason Samuels Smith (see accompanying profile) says, "We're transcending the labels--Broadway, rhythm, jazz, Latin, funk, rock tap--it's all tap dancing. It's all about each person's self-discovery about being a better tap dancer."

Jim Taylor, a tap teacher, columnist, and former partner to Ginger Rogers and Debbie Reynolds, credits venues for shaping stylistic differences and creating a distinction between concert and commercial tap. Now, he sees dance conventions accepting concert tappers as teachers, and concert tappers becoming more "entertaining." He says, "What tap sounds like is now more integrated into what it looks like." A good example is the film Tap Heat, choreographed by Danny Daniels. It consciously marries concert and commercial tap, and co-stars Samuels Smith and Lawrence Welk Show tall celeb Arthur Duncan, who dance together at the end.

Originally an American art form, tap is now catching on internationally as the blend of artistic sensibilities, casts, and musical choices develop into "'world tap." Chloe Arnold, co-director of the Los Angeles Tap Festival, sees the Internet as a major influence, allowing tap dancers to get in touch.

Lane Alexander, founder/artistic director of the Chicago Human Rhythm Project, describes a "Boomerang Renaissance." "Great international artists have infused the aesthetics of their own cultures into what they've learned from American tap," he says. "They're bringing together a new combination of musical and theater traditions, which is then presented hack in the States." An example is Brazilian-based Valeria Pinheiro of Vata Tap, who blends tap with legends of Afro-Brazilian deities (orixas).

Meanwhile, U.S.-based artists incorporate international influences. In California, Linda Sohl-Donnell choreographs tap works to intricate Balinese compositions. In Minnesota, Joe Chvala's Flying Foot Forum integrates powerful Norse legends. In New York, Tapage layers aesthetics from French and Japanese heritages with the music and poetry, of South and Central America.

Thanks to audiences galvanized by Glover and others, and the release of new books, videos, and films like Chicago, tap has become increasingly prominent. But along with the growing visibility come concerns from the field. Many fear that tap is being taught without proper attention to musicality, tonality, rhythm, shading, or stage presence; that dancers do not know what to express with their strong technique; and that not enough emphasis is given to understanding the root influences of tap and its history, particularly its African heritage. How can tap institutionalize into company, presenting, and producing structures, so that organizations live beyond their entrepreneurial artist-founders? The most widely held concern is the lack of venues outside of festivals. Where are all the artists to perform?

Jimmy Slyde, at 76 now tap's elder statesman, remembers the 1930s and '40s when tap was everywhere and artists had multiple opportunities to "apply their trade." In the early '90s, the New York City club La Cave was dubbed "the University." It was a place where Slyde and other master artists performed alongside of and mentored younger artists. It was where Clover spoke into a mike for the first time, and where, every week, dancers could learn to become "personas."

"We [older artists] were just there to make sure things were heading in the right direction to give them their wings," says Slyde. "It was the schooling going on that was important. You can improv if you have some tools, if you have something to improv on. The important thing is to practice," he says, adding a Slyde-ism, "Always put the 'e' on the end of improv."

Although Slyde, who, along with eight other tap legends, received an honorary doctorate degree from Oklahoma City University in 2002, laments the closing of "the University" and the relative lack of venues and proper respect given to tap as an art form, he is encouraged. "Style has come back into tap," he says. "Dancers are stepping out into other directions. It's so healthy." He embraces it all--"so long as the dancers have something to say."

Marda Kirn was a founding director of the Colorado Dance Festival and is director of the International Tap Association.