Let's Have a Look at...... Joseph Wiggan, Princess Grace Award Winner for 2005
Let's talk tap! Isn't that what tappers do - talk - with their feet? Have dialogues only they understand? Tap dancers live in a world of sounds based on the rhythms they feel and are compelled to communicate to each other and to us. Watching Joseph Wiggan smile as he produces these sounds is a treat. Hearing them is a gift.
He is nineteen, and since tappers seem to go on forever, he has lots more years ahead. He is also the winner of the 2005 Princess Grace Award, a prestigious honor to be used to further his education (as a sophomore working toward a business degree at Marymount College in New York), and as an important credit to enhance his resume. He is tall, string-bean skinny, charming, and gentle with a modest but engaging demeanor on stage and off. His feet create art, and his eyes connect with the audience saying I'll try my best. I hope you like it.
"Everyone has their own way of presenting themselves to an audience," he said. "For me, it is important to connect. Most audiences do not know the language of tap. I like to feel I am making them know what it is about and what I am about."
How many dancers begin to study because they have a sister who takes classes and mom has to drag them along instead of hiring a baby sitter? It is a common story. Many of these siblings end up as professionals, because they have to choose between sitting in the corner with a book and candy bar or getting up and moving. It all began that way for Wiggan who accompanied his sister, Josette, to classes at Paul Kennedy's studio in Los Angeles. Fairly soon Kennedy became aware that Wiggan was just sitting quietly in the back waiting for the class to be over. He suggested Wiggan might try on a pair of shoes and follow him in a simple pattern.
"I was falling all over the place," Wiggan said, "but I really like to have a challenge so I went home to practice. I wasn't sure of what I was getting into, but the following week I showed Mr. Kennedy how I had worked on the step so he gave me another one." Kennedy had laid down the gauntlet, and Wiggan had picked it up. Their friendship bloomed, as did Wiggan's tap technique. Soon he was a member of the Kennedy Tap Company. In tap, inspiration is often willed through the feet from teacher to pupil like a religious ritual. It is a legacy - a tradition passed on from old to young. "Mr. Kennedy gave me my feet," he said. There was an unmistakable thank-you framed in his large dark eyes as he spoke.
Unlike ballet, with its prescribed vocabulary, tap dance finds its roots in improvisation - the invention of steps that evolve through imitation and the constant addition of new ideas. One tapper will lay down a step; another picks it up and lays down a second version, inviting a third version from yet another dancer. These are the challenges between dancers that have become the foundation upon which tap choreography relies.
Thus the tap jams! Wiggan and tapping pals would gather at a studio to try out ideas. "We get out on the floor, hold hands, and make a living circle," he began. "One person made some sounds, then would dance for as long as he wanted before passing it on to the next one in the circle. You trained your ear to listen. When it was your turn you could dance until you felt ready to stop, and as a result develop strength as well as creativity. When I came to New York I did the same thing got a group of dancers together, and we rented space at Faisels studio- just for us to train -- just for us to be together."
Between tap dancers there has always existed a natural nurturing camaraderie - a loving bond that feeds the development of these steps and patterns. "Every dancer has his own steps," Wiggan said. "He practices, goes to jams, and spends time thinking how best to push himself. I listen to jazz music and apply it to my tapping. When you can apply the musical phrasing to your feet and still have a visual that is unique to the way you move, you begin to develop your own style. You try an idea, twist it, turn it, and then make it your own."
Presently Wiggan is enamored with the music of John Coltrane. "A saxophone musician who plays as fast as a tapper taps is remarkable," he said. "John Coltrane is a technical genius on the sax and great inspiration for me." Wiggan performs as a member of Lynn Dally's Jazz Tap Ensemble, and as a guest at the Tap City performances. His telephone number is making the rounds of choreographers who have discovered his talent. "I'm glad," he said, "after all tapping is my major source of income. It's good that people are beginning to know my face."
Actually it is Joseph Wiggan's feet that people are beginning to notice and to cheer.