Another piece of dance history will face the wrecking ball: Fazil’s has closed Thursday to make way for another luxury hotel in New York. (We really need another one?) I called to book the space for a private lesson and learned the terrible news. Personally, Midori and I have great memories of rehearsing at the dance studio over the years. Midori learned from tap legend Chuck Green at Fazil’s. We choreographed some of our best routine and had most of our tap rehearsals there. For those who are not familiar, Fazil’s was the unofficial home of tap and flamenco dancers. You would walk up several flights of stairs from its street access point on Eighth Avenue between 46th and 47th Streets and enter a home of happy feet. In some of its lower level rental studios, the ceiling would quake with the stomping of dancers above. The floor was not as polished as other rental studios. OK, the floor may have last been polished decades ago. But we never got tired on it. Perhaps I reasoned this was because the floor was hardwood layered over years of hardwood. But I also loved to tell folks that the ghosts of the studio’s past lightened the impact of its floor—a version of dancing on the shoulders of giants. While I knew the studio space as Fazil’s, the studio’s story merely ends there. The beginning dates back to the 1920s. A few years ago, the New York Times posted an article on the studio, which touched on this past. They have several other articles from 1989 to 2005. I guess that we drew inspiration from this rich dance history. We felt like rehearsing at Fazil’s carried a story forward that has started long before us. I couldn’t wait for us to start tapping for fun with our son, Indigo, at Fazil’s. Unfortunately, we won’t get the chance. Fazil’s may move on. The staff said they are working on finding a new space. But those ghosts will be lost, however. I’m still in shock. A piece of my neighborhood and my New York will just disappear. I guess that’s life in the Big Apple.

Posted on February 9th, 2008 by chad

In September 1938, Warner Bros shot a Vitaphone short titled, “Two Shadows.” According to Rob Liebman’s exhaustive and invaluable reference book, Vitaphone Films: A Catalogue of Features and Shorts, the film centered around a young man whose father wants him to go to work. To help him get a job as a bouncer, he stages a fight with his friend. Liebman lists the cast as including Ken and Roy Paige, Bill and Beverly Bemis, Irene Beasley, Sharkey Bonano’s Swing Band, and Jean and her Big Apple Dancers.

While this film is only one of thousands of missing Vitaphone shorts, a vital part of our national history that disappears by the day, it has particular significant to us for two reasons. First, the film features a group of dancers from New York University dancing the Big Apple, a dance we care about. Second, one of the dancers turns out to be an important figure in social dance history and someone we care deeply about, John Lucchese. (Continue reading…)

Posted on October 14th, 2006 by chad