A biography for Savion Gloverhasn’t been written yet.
“I like to express myself inside of the work that is given, and I let the dancers do the same.”
“When you think about John Coltrane, in my opinion - and I think I share this opinion with a lot of people - his approach to music changed other people's approach to music.”
“Jimmy Slyde was more a musician than a dancer; Greg Hines was more musician than dancer.”
“You can go to see a singer and love the show, but you don't need to know all the songs. What you want to do when you leave is go and find out more about the music.”
“It wasn't until I did a musical revue in Paris in the 1980s called 'Black and Blue,' and met the great men and women responsible for the progress of tap dance, that my relationship with the dance really began.”
“I'm inspired by breath, by the human body - by so many things.”
“I used to think I had this responsibility to carry on this tradition. Now I just feel like I have to keep the dance out there, keep it in the public eye.”
“The Nicholas Brothers were the best tap-dancers. I'm not talking about their flash-dancing, I'm talking about tap-dancing. They were really saying something with their feet.”
“When you find real jazz on the radio dial, it comes in all static-y. It's just like tap dancers. You have to go uptown to find the real hoofers. We only come to midtown if we're called upon.”
“What does genius mean? God has put us here specifically... every person has a job or journey to do. It's just a matter of finding what we're here to fulfill or execute. That's genius to me.”
“Just like a comedian has a certain joke or a jazz musician has a riff that they know will get the crowd, a tap dancer always has a step.”
“Great athletes last because they let the mental do all the work. What we do as hoofers is not so much a physical strain as everybody thinks. It's more of a mental stretch.”
“If someone wants to be very tight about authenticity or ownership, it just sounds kind of competitive to me.”
“Every performance is different because I'm different; my mood is different.”
“I want tap to be something danced in arenas. Sort of like a rock group. Other art forms happen every night. Take theater, opera; there's always opera happening every night.”
“I try to convey the musical notes through dance, take on the music.”
“Whether it is Jimmy Slyde or Lon Chaney or Gregory Hines, their dance shows what they experienced, what they had to go through.”
“Tap's foundation is jazz, just like hip-hop, so relating tap-dancing to rap is natural for me.”
“I want to entertain, but I'm interested in a whole range of feelings.”
“I'm still growing, still learning. I'm still open and vulnerable enough to know there's much more to be taught to me and learned by me. I hope I don't reach my pinnacle on this earth where I think I know it all.”