Bursting with holiday cheer the Tony Award winning Savion Glover returns to the Center for the Arts with a memorable evening of miraculous tap footwork and plenty of charm and wit called “Savion Glover with “DANCE HOLIDAY SPeCTaCULaR.”

“Savion Glover is unquestionably the best tap dance artist in the world. I was also very pleased that this production allowed us to bring variety to our holiday offerings,” said Thomas Reynolds, the Center’s director of artistic programing. One way to describe tap as a performing arts form is that the dancer’s feet move on stage making their own music even if no other instruments are heard.

Glover first captured national attention before he was even a teenager dancing in the Broadway musical, “The Tap Dance Kid.” In 1996 he won Tony Awards for Best Choreographer and for Best Actor for “‘Bring in Da Noise, Bring in ‘Da Funk,” a musical that recounted events in African-American history through tap/rap.

“At the center of all dance is rhythm and tap is the most direct, powerful and exciting living expressive rhythm with the human body acting both as dancer and instrument,” said Christopher D’amboise, professor, Mason School of Dance. D’amboise is a renowned dancer in the local area, and a recipient of a Helen Hayes Award for his choreography in professional theater.

“Savion Glover, in particular, has changed the art of tap forever by freeing it from external choreographic constraints and allowing it to be a spontaneous expressing coming from the inside out. He is not just a tap dancer, he dances as if infected with rhythm and the beat is dancing him,” added D’amboise.

Glover’s other performing credits include a starring roles in the motion picture "Jelly's Last Jam" for which he made history as the youngest ever recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant. He holds the credit as the live dancing motion behind Mumble the penguin in the Disney Academy Award-winning animated feature "Happy Feet.” Glover has also appeared on "Sesame Street."

“DANCE HOLIDAY SPeCTaCULaR” will celebrate the wonders of the holidays. “I chose this Savion Glover performance as it represents the chance to do what we hope to do as often as possible, present the best artists in the world in their respective disciplines,” added Reynolds.

Savion Glover promises to bring an evening full of bright lights, joyous music, holiday cheer through fast steps and marvelous rhythms.