Foundational Black Music Genres

SPIRITUALS and RAGTIME
Enslaved Africans created Spirituals by blending ancestral rhythms with traditional hymns. By the late 1800s, geniuses like Scott Joplin developed Ragtime, a syncopated, piano-driven style that set the stage for modern syncopation.

BLUES, GOSPEL and JAZZ
In the early 1900s, the Blues emerged from the Deep South, introducing raw emotional storytelling and the 12-bar progression. Urban churches simultaneously birthed Gospel, fusing spiritual roots with passionate, joyful vocals. Soon after, New Orleans musicians blended these styles into Jazz, a revolutionary art form built entirely on improvisation and swing.

R&B, ROCK and SOUL
By the 1940s, Rhythm and Blues electrified the scene with heavy, driving beats. This directly birthed Rock and Roll, pioneered by Black icons like Chuck Berry and Sister Rosetta Tharpe who changed global youth culture forever. By the 1960s, Soul took over, combining gospel passion with secular romance.


Iron City
The historical context of Pittsburgh as a thriving center of jazz and performing arts, particularly within the African American community, provides a rich backdrop for Overcoat Sam's experiences and journey. The association with notable artists and musicians from Pittsburgh adds depth to the musical's connection to the cultural heritage and artistic legacy of the city.

The reference to Pittsburgh as "The Crossroads of the World" aligns with Sam's own position at a metaphorical crossroad in his life and reinforces the idea of the back alley as a symbolic space of choices and transformation.

The portrayal of Pittsburgh as a smoky, gritty, and tough city contributes to the atmospheric and immersive qualities of the setting, enhancing the overall mood and tone of the musical. The parallel between the three powerful wives of Shango and the three rivers of Pittsburgh adds a layer of symbolism and mythology to the narrative, tying together cultural elements and further exploring themes of spirituality and transformation.


Burlesque
Burlesque has worn many costumes across the centuries -- some glittering, some ragged, all a little mischievous.

In its older, European sense, burlesque is not about undressing the body so much as undressing ideas. The word comes from the Italian burla -- a joke, a trick, a playful deception. In this tradition, burlesque is a theatrical art of exaggeration and inversion: it takes something grand and treats it as low, or something ordinary and inflates it to absurd importance. Kings speak like clowns, beggars speak like philosophers, and the “serious” world is turned on its head just long enough for us to see it clearly.

Writers like Molière and Alexander Pope used burlesque to parody classical forms, mock social pretensions, and slip sharp truths into elegant comedy. Myth, religion, literature, and polite society -- all could be reimagined, distorted, and joyfully “sent up” in order to reveal their hidden contradictions. The tone might be playful, even ridiculous, but the aim is often serious: to question power, expose hypocrisy, and wrestle with big ideas -- fate, morality, ambition -- through laughter and theatricality.

On stage, burlesque thrives on bold performance. It invites direct address, heightened language, musicality, and a knowing wink to the audience. It is not bound by strict realism; instead, it delights in artifice -- announcing itself as performance, blurring the line between narrator and character, story and spectacle. It can move quickly, sketching scenes rather than dwelling in them, because its energy lies in rhythm, surprise, and transformation.

In the context of a musical like The Red Tap Shoes, “burlesque” suggests a style where music, dance, and storytelling collide with satire and myth. Characters may step outside the action to comment on it, songs may carry both humor and prophecy, and the world itself may feel heightened -- half alleyway, half dream. Comedy and tragedy are not opposites here; they dance together, trading steps. A joke can land like a warning, and a spectacle can carry the weight of destiny. In short, burlesque is theater with a sly grin and a sharp mind: a form that entertains boldly while quietly asking, “What if everything you took seriously… is part of the joke?”


The Rhythm of the Shine:
A Legendary American Tradition

The character, Shine Bo Banjo, represents a rich, high-art street tradition known as rhythmic shoe shining -- a beautiful piece of Black history that turned a daily chore into a master class in percussion and performance. Rooted deeply in the American South, this tradition wasn't just about a clean polish. It was about showmanship, music, and rhythm. Master shiners used a specific toolkit to turn their work into a song:

The Rag Pop: They would snap, snap, and crack the polishing cloth across the leather to mimic a sharp snare drum.

The Brush Clack: They would rhythmically tap the wooden backs of their brushes against the side of the shoeshine box.

The Step: Many shiners would execute tap footwork while leaning over the customer's foot, blending work with dance.

This culture was so vibrant that it led to massive, organized competitions. The most famous was the Annual Shoe Shining Contest in Wilson, North Carolina, which began in the mid-20th century. These events drew crowds of up to 12,000 visitors a year. Judges didn't just grade the final gloss of the leather - they awarded points for the entertainment, the singing, and the rhythm of the performance.

This rhythmic heritage is a fundamental pillar of Black American performance history - where everyday labor was elevated into an unforgettable art form. James Brown ("The Godfather of Soul") famously got his start as a boy singing, dancing, and popping rags at a shoeshine stand in Georgia.


Shake Dancers
Long before the word “stripper” became common shorthand, the stars of the Black jazz-age burlesque circuit -- performers like pioneering entertainers Bessie Dudley and Madeline 'Sahji' Jackson -- were known as shake dancers.

In the neon nightlife of the Hill District of Pittsburgh and other urban entertainment centers, these dancers blended the glamour of the chorus line with rhythmic, improvisational movement deeply rooted in African American performance traditions.


Shingle Dancers
Shingle dancing is a form of solo dancing akin to tap dancing, of African American origin, usually associated with old-time music. A shingle dancer dances on a small wooden platform (typically no more than about 30 inches square), sometimes equipped with a bell or a loose piece of metal to allow additional percussive effects.


Tap Dance History
The 1739 slave insurrection in Stono, Va. -- triggered when African slaves drum-beat a message of revolt to alert slaves at neighboring plantations -- led to passage of the 1740 Slave Act, forbidding slaves from beating drums, blowing horns or the like. To substitute for musical instruments, hand claps and foot beats were used, creating a music form where dancers made their own rhythms and sounds.

These new rhythms were subsequently applied derisively to European dances on plantations, frequently for the amusement of white owners. For example, the Cakewalk, where a cake prize was given to the slave who performed the fanciest walk before a white audience, was a parody of the minuet grand march at whites fancy parties. Slaves also copied techniques of Irish jig dancers visiting the plantations.

In Louisville, Ky., in 1828, a white dancer calling himself "Jumping Jim Crow" did a parody-in-blackface of this new slave dancing. The minstrel show was born; whites parodied blacks parodying whites. In 1844, a free-born black dancer, Juba, King of All Dancers, fused European steps with African rhythms before white audiences in public competitions with an Irish jig dancer; he was the major black minstrel-era dancer in America and Europe.

Buck dancing was the earliest combination of basic shuffle and tap steps, performed to syncopated rhythms, in which the accent is placed on the down or off beat--a style derived from African tribal music. There were two distinct dance techniques by late 19th century, buck-and-wing and soft-shoe. The former was active, fast and danced in wooden or hard leather-soled shoes. Soft-shoe was relaxed and smooth. It developed from dances like the German-Irish waltz clog, fusing German immigrant folk dancing with Irish jigs, and from slow-tempoed shuffles like the Essence of Old Virginia.

Synchronized tap dancing was introduced by the Floradora Girls in 1900, and the term tap and step dancing was introduced in a 1902 minstrel show. Metal cleats were now worn on heels and toes of leather shoes. As vaudeville supplanted minstrel shows, tap dancing developed with great vigor in two different paths, one white and one black. One led from George M. Cohan to Fred Astaire. The other produced the great Bill Robinson, known as "Bojangles."

Tap dance did not develop in linear progression from a single ethnic source; it is a uniquely American creation resulting from a blending of cultures, of Old World traditions and New World imagination, and drew equally from Europeans and Africans to make a new dance form.


Time Steps
Tap dance as it is known today did not emerge until roughly the 1920s, when "taps," nailed or screwed onto shoe soles at the toes and heels, became popular. During this time entire chorus lines in shows such as Shuffle Along (1921) first appeared on stage with "tap shoes," and the dance they did became known as tap dancing.

The "challenge" in which tap dancers challenged one another to a dancing "duel" -- had been a major part of the tap dancer's education from the beginning. It filtered into many theatrical acts.

From the outset, tap dancers have stretched the art form, dancing to a wide variety of music and improvising new styles. Among these innovative styles were flash (dance movements that incorporated acrobatics and were often used to finish a dance); novelty (the incorporation into a routine of specialty props, such as jump ropes, suitcases, and stairs); eccentric, legomania, and comedy (each of which used the body in eccentric and comic ways to fool the eye and characteristically involved wild and wiggly leg movements); swing tap, also known as classical tap (combining the upper body movement found in 20th-century ballet and jazz with percussive, syncopated footwork, a style used extensively in the movies); class (precision dancing performed by impeccably dressed dancers); military (the use of military marching and drum rhythms); and rhythm, close floor, and paddle and roll (each of which emphasized footwork using heel and toe taps, typically of a rapid and rhythmic nature).

Tap gained popularity after the Civil War as a part of traveling minstrel shows. There were two distinct dance techniques by late 19th century, buck-and-wing and soft-shoe. It was not until the period between 1900 and 1920 that tap dance emerged as a dance form in its own right. With it, tap dance shoes were born. In the earliest days of tap dance, pennies or hobnails were hammered into the toe and heels of shoes, to create the tap sound as performers danced. Before 1910, tap dancers wore shoes made with leather uppers and wooden soles, so that the wood tapped out the beat. After 1910, it became the fashion to apply metal taps to the bottoms of tap dance shoes.

The popularity of tap dancing began to decline in the 1950s.

This change is often attributed to a series of events in the 1940s. In 1942 Agnes de Mille introduced narrative ballet into the Broadway show with Oklahoma. Although in Rodeo (1942) she had also been the first to introduce tap dance into ballet, her billing as a "choreographer" and the false competition with ballet made tap seem "hokey" and passe. Another factor in the waning of tap dance was a dramatic drop in nightclub attendance, as men and women who had come home from service overseas concentrated on getting an education, starting careers, and raising families.


Bill "Bojangles" Robinson
Bill Robinson was an iconic American tap dancer and actor who revolutionized dance by moving it from a flat-footed style to a light, rhythmic toe-and-heel technique. While it is not known exactly where the name "Bojangles," came from, some contend it is a contraction for "bone jangler" or a musician who beats time by clapping together a pair of bones or simply a drummer. Robinson began his career in minstrel shows and vaudeville, eventually breaking racial barriers as a headliner on Broadway and a star in major Hollywood films, famously starring alongside Shirley Temple in the 1930s.

Despite being the highest-paid Black performer of the first half of the 20th century and earning over $2 million in his lifetime, Bill Robinson died penniless on November 25, 1949.

Robinson's immense wealth was completely depleted by legendary generosity to charities, support for struggling artists, and personal gambling losses. Though he died without funds -- forcing friends to pay for his burial -- nearly 100,000 people lined the streets of New York for his funeral to honor his massive cultural legacy.


Swellfoot
It is significant that the swollen feet, and the dark events of being abandoned, become Oedipus -- and become what drives him to seek the light of knowledge. The sphinx riddle alludes to this paradox in the riddle about walking -- it is a riddle about feet. Oedipus is driven by his darkness and becomes obsessed with light. Metaphorically, it is actually this obsession with seeing the light and knowing all the answers that blinds Oedipus to the fact that, as a mortal man, there are simply some things we do not know and cannot understand. As humans, we are "in the dark."

In that same sense, it is actually Overcoat Sam's dark despair and anger at being a poor, homeless hobo, forced to dance on the street for pennies, that drives him to desire the red tap shoes – and all that they represent to him. Overcoat Sam got his name because, since he felt alone and vulnerable in a dark cold world, he began protecting himself under layers of coats, trying to hide from the darkness he felt. Like Oedipus Swell Foot, Overcoat Sam becomes his name, he becomes the darkness he feels. It is this perception of darkness that leads Overcoat Sam to become obsessed with seeking light -- here light may imply both the light of knowledge of tap dancing skills and the shining stage light of fame, fortune and adulation.

But Sam's obsession with light, becomes a blind spot since Sam fails to carefully consider the consequences of fame and showing off and being in the spotlight. Sam is so obsessed with seeking light that he sheds all of his overcoats and metaphorically exposes all of his inner-self to the heat and glare of light, not considering that some things are meant to stay private or hidden in a back alley.

The Faust legend also reverberates with these themes. Oedipus' swollen feet form his identity and his tyrannical insistence on seeking knowledge -- the knowledge of the kind's murderer. Like Faust, Oedipus seeks knowledge even when warned that such knowledge could prove deadly. Like Faust, Overcoat Sam seeks the knowledge of great tap dancing, and desires to know the experience of romantic love, fame and public adoration. And of course, it is ultimately these things that Sam so desires, that bring his downfall -- and result in Sam chopping off his own feet.



Dance and Desire
Two principle sources for the play include the fable of "The Red Shoes" and the legend of "Faust."

Red Shoes' protagonist, Katrina, while rich in spirit, is very poor. On the other hand, Dr. Faust is wealthy but wretched. Riches to Rags or vice versa -- money is at the root. The point seems to be: You don't know what you've got till it's gone."

Satan is certainly the villain in these pieces, but in all "making a deal with the devil" stories, tragedy comes as a consequence of the protagonist's actions. Both Katrina and Faust are undone by their own selfish single-mindedness -- and like Eve accepting the Serpent's offer of fruit from the "Tree of Knowledge" -- both protagonists turn a blind eye to repeated warnings and red flags, removing disruptions to the dark contemplation of their temptation.

True, Satan tempted Eve, but Eve wanted the apple – Satan only tempted Eve to do what she had already decided she would do.

Yes, the powerful, magical beauty of the Red Shoes tempted Katrina, but it is Katrina who felt she lacked something, was missing something, deserved something or needed something to get the attention of other people. Upon first seeing the Red Shoes, Katrina begins manipulating her stepmother into buying them, immediately deciding she had to have the shoes. Not because the shoes fit her feet, but because they perfectly fit the size and contours of her need to be seen, acknowledged and loved. The Red Shoes merely tempt Katrina to do a dance she’d already practiced in her mind.

The determined Dr. Frankenstein is similarly warned about his experiments, but even as the inevitable horrors begin for the society at large, the Faustian hero continues to justify the trade-off and pursues his/her personal dream.

"Jabez Stone," hero of Stephen Vincent Benét’s short story "The Devil and Daniel Webster," actually manages to prove he had valid reasons to bargain with the devil, by winning a trial by jury. The Prince of Darkness caught in a court of law is less than satisfactory, however, Benét’s alternate ending further illustrates the Faustian protagonist's dual identity as both hero -- and villain.

Katrina's red shoes and Dorothy's ruby slippers from the Land of Oz, are shiny fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. Caving in to temptation requires a physical representation of a spiritual doorway. For Little Red Riding-hood -- it's the cute, red cape -- and one suspects that, regardless of the path Little Red took, the Wolf would've spotted her. Warnings to Red about the colorful encounters possible along a short-cut to Grandmother's house only served to map out her adventure.

All of Cinderella's riches returned to rags at midnight -- except her delicate glass slippers. They survived to tell the tale. Cinderella's slippers are as substantially real as they are fantastically magic. They are the exact puncture point in the fabric of space and time between two worlds. An artifact of the stroke of midnight, the magic shoes exist in every yesterday and every tomorrow. They will never, ever disappear. They cannot be destroyed and further, Cinderella's shoes fit only her. The magic item is non-transferable.

Significantly, the magic item delights as much as it torments, and as the channel of the adventure, it takes on the significance of a central character. The story of Red Tap Shoes then, is the struggle between those who say, "curiosity killed the cat" and those who figure, "nothing ventured -- nothing gained."