Bril Barrett Grooves His M.A.D.D. Rhythms Tap into Prominence
While drastically changing tap, Bril Barrett still preserves its roots. This new generation teacher pulls in the youth with a hip style using current music and jazzed up versions of the older music standards. He always brings with him all the history, remembering the hoofers and artists from the past. Barrett hasn’t forgotten his own roots either, and now, more than 20 years later, still returns regularly to his old neighborhood in Chicago to teach.
“My mom understood the importance of the arts because her mother always wanted her children in the arts,” Barrett recalls. “When she saw how much I enjoyed it, she fought to keep me in class. She believed in education and always kept me in a private school and dance classes that she could afford. Teachers would help and often worked out deals with her. My uncle also helped and an aunt often drove me to class, but I knew how to take public transportation.”
Barrett grew up in the North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago, with all the problems of a poor area. His mom enrolled him in the Better Boys Foundation community service organization to keep him off the streets. Barrett loved the theatre department and skipped sports to take voice, drama, jazz, ballet, modern and tap. His first tap teacher was Carlton Smith.
These classes led to future classes at the well-known Sammy Dyer Theatre School, where he took tap from Ted Levy. “I loved tap from the first time I did it, but my mom couldn’t afford many classes, though the school did try to assist,” Barrett says. “Because I took the subway to school, I saw tap dancing on the streets by Mr. Taps, Ayrie King III. I watched him and asked him if I could dance with him.”
“I learned how to interact with the crowd,” Barrett stated. “I learned that the amount of time was only the time they had waiting for a train. I was exposed to improvisation, and Mr. Taps took me to his home to show me footage of tap where I saw the Nicholas Brothers and the Step Brothers. I had only watched movies of Fred Astaire and I wanted to be a smooth, cool, ladies man. Now I wanted to do acrobatics after seeing the footage. I did make money when dancing on the streets and learned how to please the crowd.”
When Barrett met Robert Reed, Barrett asked if he and Don Russell could perform at the St. Louis Tap Festival. Reed agreed to put them on if they could get there. Somehow they found a way to get there, and Reed kept his word and put them on stage. Barrett continues to attend and teaches every year.
Barrett made his bedroom into an office his senior year in high school, from which he did lots of cold calling and telemarketing. Teaching was not his original goal. His first professional tap dance job was the national tour of “The Tap Dance Kid.” “Trey Dumas and Bobby, who played the kid, and I convinced the producer to let us improv at the end of the show, and it became a big hit and got attention,” Barrett recalls.
When Barrett came back home to Chicago, it was like starting all over again. Then he made the “Riverdance” cast in 1998. Again, when he came home after the tour, he had the same problems of starting over. Barrett wanted a life at home and a base from which to operate, planting the early seeds of M.A.D.D. Rhythms, his professional group. Barrett’s brother, Ja’Bowen, was beginning to tap. Barrett wanted to establish a way to keep Ja’Bowen with him. Barrett began teaching a class at the Sammy Dyer School and volunteered to teach another class to help young black men stay out of trouble.
“Bril is the reason I got into tap and one of my biggest influences,” Ja’Bowen said. “I used to watch Bril street dancing and became interested. When I was younger, he tried to teach me a few steps and I didn’t want to do it. When M.A.D.D. Rhythms started, I was 16. He asked [our sister] Star and me to start rehearsing with the group in 2001. Because of M.A.D.D. Rhythms, tap is a love in my life. No matter what I do, I always include tap. Bril is and has been the influence in my life and the reason I tap now. He instilled his love of tap.”
In 2001, when Barrett came home after “Riverdance,” Bril taught the boys’ classes. When his sister, Star, asked why there were no girls in the classes, Barrett added Star and girls were included.
“Bril is a great teacher who is eager to pass on everything he knows about tap and the tap legends,” Star said. “He is patient and if it was not for him, I have no idea what I would be doing right now. He was my main inspiration to tap.”
One of M.A.D.D. Rhythms’ original and current female members, Donnetta Jackson, 18, says, “Bril has been my teacher since 2000 and has acted as a father figure to me the whole time. He helped me not be scared to improv. I dance every day and it fills the biggest part of my life. Thanks to Bril for continuing my tap education.”
Arts coordinator Efe McWorter and a group of volunteers from Dancing in the Parks became mentors to Barrett and pushed him to do things. Later, McWorter became director of the South Shore Cultural Center. “What do you want to do?” she asked Barrett. “Start a company? Need rehearsal space? OK, what else?” She made Barrett a partner in residence, and M.A.D.D. Rhythms gained rehearsal space. Barrett and his group taught classes in exchange, and their first show was in February 2001.
They kept marketing, rehearsing and producing. From a Saturday only class, they developed 13 classes a week and an income.
Barrett now helped develop the After School Matters program back at the Better Boys Foundation from which he started. The After School Matters program supports summer jobs and learning skills. The kids’ job is to learn tap (they receive a small stipend). This has happened for two summers. The kids took class for four hours a day, five days a week and got paid through the Mayor’s office. The first summer Jumaane Taylor helped. Last summer Ja’Bowen assisted Barrett. The program is now funded year round for three days a week for three hours a day.
“Every year Robert Reed would invite me to St. Louis and I modeled M.A.D.D. Rhythms after the St. Louis Hoofers and the Flint Stone Hoofers,” Barrett explains. “The St. Louis Tap Festival opened many doors and influenced me. I saw footage and got to know the hoofers who were honored.” He began his own Tap Summit in 2004 as a meeting place for great minds and issues to meet annually. In 2008 he added the M.A.D.D. Rhythm Jr. Corps to take the place of the members who move on.
Current M.A.D.D. Rhythms member Nora Clark reflects on her tap experience: “I was drawn to M.A.D.D. the first time I saw them at the St. Louis Tap Festival. Bril and the crew gave off such a positive vibe and pulled you in with crazy steps and original rhythms. When it was time for college, I knew Chicago was the place to go. Bril invited me into this family, no questions asked. He embraced a white studio-kid from Vermont into a foreign world and (with the help of all M.A.D.D. Rhythms’ members) and has drastically aided my growth as a tap dancer.”
Ivana Barouhas from Texas, who attends the St. Louis Tap Festival, describes Bril’s class, “No matter how tired our feet were after the first classes of the morning, walking into Bril Barrett’s class sparked up everyone’s energy because it meant we’d gotten to what is now my favorite part of tap dancing: a bunch of people coming together and just sharing tap, sharing rhythms, sharing steps and sharing tap’s amazing history.
“Bril would end class by asking everyone to name an important or famous tap dancer, duo, trio group, movie, show or documentary. It’s obvious that keeping tap’s history and traditions alive through the younger generations is important to him. Bril manages to reach a balance between his tremendous respect for the history of tap and his fresh style incorporating hip-hop, choreography and improvisation.”
A balance between tap history and preservation, combined with a new, innovative and hip style presentation, often taught in a circle, best describes this transitional teacher who links the past to the present. Thanks to Bril Barrett, the old has become new again, and the future, inspiring.
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