“You have to understand where it all began,” says Thanos Daskalopoulos, educator, choreographer and founder of Playground for the Arts, an Athens-based hub for rhythm and performing arts. “If you’re dancing now but don’t know the history—who those performers were and how they shaped American entertainment—you’re losing the thread.”

“It’s not just about theory. It enriches your musically,” adds Natasha Martin, a percussive dance artist and dance anthropologist who teaches and performs tap in Athens. “History is an interweaving of technique and musicality.”

One of the masters of technique and musicality was born in 19th-century Richmond, Virginia. Though he started as a child, dancing and singing for nickels and dimes, he later went on to become one of the greatest tap dancers of all time– his name was Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.

Bill “Bojangles” Robinson was the best known and the most highly paid black entertainer in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

May 25, officially declared “National Tap Dance Day” by the U.S. Congress in 1989, celebrates the art of tap and      the great Bill Robinson’s birthday. This year the holiday will also be celebrated in the Greek capital.

A Rising Star in a Divided America

Born in 1878 and raised by his formerly enslaved grandmother, Bill Robinson grew up in a segregated America. Richmond offered Black children few opportunities for education or advancement, but armed with talent and determination, Robinson began dancing on the streets to earn a living.

Nicknamed “Bojangles” as a child, Robinson performed in minstrel shows, where he was often cast as a “pickaninny”—a deeply racist caricature used in 19th-century American variety shows where white performers in blackface portrayed crude stereotypes of Black Americans.

By the age of 12, Robinson had joined the Washington, D.C. touring production of The South Before the War. He would go on to become a prominent figure on the vaudeville scene, which was rooted in turn in the minstrel show tradition.

Veronica Eagan, usher at the Palace Theater in New York City, near Times Square, stands beside a poster listing the eight vaudeville acts in order of appearance, which will be offered along with a first-run movie, May 19, 1949. (AP Photo/Dan Grossi)

African-American performers like Robinson would gradually develop vaudeville, injecting it with originality, dignity and artistry. They challenged blackface tropes by composing their own music, comedy and dance routines. On Black vaudeville circuits, this gave rise to uniquely American art forms including blues, jazz, and tap dance.

From Minstrel to Broadway

Eventually, Robinson’s solo vaudeville career flourished. He toured extensively across the U.S., performing multiple sold-out shows per night.

In 1918, he debuted on Broadway, becoming one of the few African-Americans to headline at the prestigious Palace Theater in New York. His standout act, the “Stair Dance,” involved tapping with uncanny clarity and rhythm up and down a staircase—a routine that remains a staple of the tap repertoire.

Robinson continued to break barriers, becoming the first Black artist to headline a racially integrated Broadway production. Hollywood followed, beginning with The Little Colonel (1935), where he performed alongside Shirley Temple.

Daskalopoulos was inspired to pursue his own personal tap voice after witnessing the resonance and importance of Bojangles’ legacy. He recounts an evening at New York’s Swing 46 jazz club, where the iconic hoofer, Buster Brown, was hosting a jam session. Among the performers was a young actress playing Shirley Temple in the 2001 film Bojangles. She asked the musicians to play a cabaret number they weren’t familiar with, so she ended up dancing a cappella, without any supporting instruments. The crowd went wild.

“That sense of encouragement, of openness to all styles, ages, expressions—as long as you’re wearing tap shoes… that’s what we try to keep alive here,” he says.

Rhythm in Athens: Building a Community

Tap classes are now available in various studios across Athens, and both Martin and Daskalopoulos stress the importance of students learning from different teachers and exploring diverse styles.

“As tap dancers in Greece, we’re constantly researching, meeting up, studying tap history. Not because it’s trendy to honor African-Americans now, but because it’s valuable knowledge,” Martin says.

Percussive dance artist and dance anthropologist Natasha Martin and choreographer, educator, performer, tap dancer and body musician Thanos Daskalopoulos.

International tap enthusiasts who searched for classes in Greece years ago might have come across Daskalopoulos’ earlier project, Tap Motif. An international tap festival focusing on improvisation and collaboration with musicians, it ran for seven years in Lefkada.

That effort paved the way for Athens Tap Jam, founded in 2015. Like the old Hoofers Club, it gathers tap dancers, musicians, and performers for an evening of improvisation. For Martin, this is not just a performance space but a cornerstone of the local tap community.

“Athens Tap Jam became a point of convergence for international artists. Huge names in today’s tap scene have passed through: Max Pollak, Heather Cornell, Guillem Alonso, Sara Reich, Thomas Wadelton. This year, we received the Jane Goldberg Award, which allowed us to invite the great tap dancer Derick K. Grant for our tenth anniversary.”

Yet, for all their momentum, both artists stress the need for more institutional support for performing arts in Greece.

“Teaching in a studio isn’t enough,” says Daskalopoulos. “Especially after COVID. Because when the performing arts declined, so did the community around them.”

Martin emphasizes that tap is not just a social dance. “It’s a performance. You become a spectator to a spectacle.”

Daskalopoulos adds: “We want to share it with an audience—just as others shared it with us, and it moved us.”

Breaking Stereotypes

Despite its rich heritage, tap remains underfunded and misunderstood in Greece.

“Tap has never received consistent funding compared to other dance forms,” Martin says. In Greece, she adds, “what people think of as ‘dance’ is mostly contemporary dance. But even that receives minimal support, with other forms remaining very much under the radar.”

There are also misconceptions. “People still think tap is just a man in a top hat,” says Daskalopoulos. “We love that style, and it can be that, but that’s not what we represent today.”

“This isn’t a tradition we’re simply trying to replicate,” adds Martin.

Tap’s inseparable link to jazz music, she explains, is what carried it through various musical eras. “Even before there were tap shoes—when it was just bare steps on the ground—it followed the music of the time: blues, ragtime, African rhythms. The dancer was always the companion of the music.”

She leaves us with a question: “If jazz hasn’t remained stuck in the Big Bands era, why should our idea of tap dance remain stuck in the past?”

This Sunday, May 25, International Tap Dance Day will be celebrated alongside International Lindy Hop Day (May 26) with an open-air party on the marble section of Ermou street at 9pm., featuring live music by Jeepers Creepers and the Traveling Janes Connection.