Gasps From A Dying Art Form

Episode Notes: GFADAF EP18 - Logical Fallacies in Tap Dance Some errors in reasoning are so common that they have their own names. These logical fallacies, when practiced, give one a built in B.S. (Chorus) - O - Meter that enables one to spot poor arguments. Insults, popularity, outrageous misunderstandings, strawmen, red herrings and more are covered in this episode of GASPS, complete with real w...

Episode Notes GFADAF EP 17 - Learning To Die Daily; Tap Dance and Bipolar Disorder Sometimes people say the most reprehensible things, but is what they say really what they mean? When it comes to conversations in text, it can be very difficult to ascertain a person's true intention. There could be a lot going on in their life, including mental illness like bipolar disorder. On tap dance social med...

Episode Notes GFADAF EP16 - The Origin(s) of Whiteness / Books From A Dying Art Form: David Roediger and the “Wages of Whiteness” Sure, we're all aware of the various harmful stereotypes placed upon non-white people, but what about white stereotypes? Where do they come from and how have they been instrumental in forming "white culture"? "Wages of Whiteness" by David Roediger is...

Episode Notes GFADAF EP 15 - Belated 4th of July Spectacular! According to many, the United States' greatest strength is that we are a proud nation of immigrants. So why do so many people demonize immigrants? Every patriot is no doubt familiar with the famous lines "Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" but don't seem to understand it. In this episo...

--Episode Notes GFADAF EP 14 - Books From A Dying Art Form: "Five Points" by Tyler Anbinder Imagine living in a room no larger than a walk-in closet, sleeping shoulder to shoulder with strangers, it's pitch black, no windows, no ventilation, you might miss a stair step in the inky darkness and tumble to your doom... This would give you an idea what it's like to be a resident of the Five...

GFADAF EP 13 Paulo Freire and the Pedagogy of the Oppressed Tap Dancer Who wants an episode on the philosophy of education? Too bad, you're getting one anyways! On this episode, host Tristan Bruns dives into the philosophy of Paulo Freire, the famed Brazilian educator who taught hundreds of illiterate people in Brazil to read in only 45 days (!) and who influenced such scholars as bell hooks and m...

If you've read the book "Jazz Dance" then you may have been surprised at one part in particular, the epilogue, which begins with an argument against the emasculation of male dancers. (I know!) Most damning of all is a quote attributed to Gene Kelly, where he claims that the dance industry is "dominated by homosexuals." What did Kelly mean by that? Did he even say it at all? Wha...

Episode Notes Antisemitism is trending in 2022. I regret that it has reached tap dancers. This episode is about trying to convince this person that what they are doing is in poor taste, and extremely dangerous, and also to provide some tools for listeners to identify antisemitic and other types of propaganda when they encounter it. A well-known tap dancer mentioned to me a book about conspiracy th...

Tap dance history and philosophy from across the pond! Host Tristan Bruns reviews the book "Teach Yourself Tap Dancing" (2007) by Derek Hartley and compares it to other books in the "Hidden Histories of Tap Dance Histories" series—A meta analysis of syllabus-style, at home, DIY instruction books from 1932-2018 that compares and contrasts the various accounts of the history of tap dance found in th...

Episode Notes Following the U.S. Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and '60s, the language about how we talk about race (and tap dance) changed. In the new era of color-blind speech, one must navigate a slippery slope of semantics to uncover the racial subtext underneath. Host Tristan Bruns takes a look at the book "Tapworks" by Beverly Fletcher—the official tap dance reference manual of the Dance...

Episode Notes What do Kurt Vonnegut, Noam Chomsky and Donald Trump have to do with tap dance? You might be surprised... On a very special episode, host Tristan Bruns interviews Jim Siegelman, who co-authored 1977s "The Book of Tap" with tap dancer Jerry Ames. If you've read other tap dance history books, then you may be familiar with TBoT, which author Constance Vallis-Hill considers one of the bi...

Episode Notes We begin Part 2 of The Hidden History of Tap Dance Histories series with a look at "The Book of Tap" by Jerry Ames and Jim Siegelman. Host Tristan Bruns takes a thorough look "TBoT (minus the instruction part) which covers such topics as the "death" of tap, the tap dance "revival," tap in Hollywood, history, philosophy and the various quotes from famous dancers and instructors scatte...

Episode Notes Tap dancers often complain that there is not enough written about tap dance—especially its history. But what if I told you that there is more written down about tap then you may realize. . . and some of it is pretty gross (by today's standards). Host Tristan Bruns takes a look at several instructional tap dance syllabi books published in the U.S.A.—ranging from the Jim Crow-era 1930s...

Episode Notes A rare Gasps interview with the co-founder and current director of the M.A.D.D. Rhythms dance company and the non-profit Making A Different Dancing Organization—Barrett is also the Executive Producer on the Gasps podcast. Host Tristan Bruns talks with Barrett about the new M.A.D.D. Rhythms Podcast Network, Barrett's own upcoming podcast and discuss how important learning the history...

Episode Notes In this episode, host Tristan Bruns reviews Brian Seibert's "What The Eye Hears"—a popular, somewhat controversial history of tap dance—and takes a look at some of the reviews of the book that came out shortly after its publication; also, get some input from the author himself from an interview conducted by Bruns. Support this program by joining us on Patreon. 50% of all support goes...

On episode three of the GFADAF podcast, host Tristan Bruns uses tap dance to understand the revolutionary text The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by scientific philosopher Thomas S. Kuhn. On this episode, find out where the term paradigm shift comes from and what it actually means; also, learn about the natural cycle of normal scientific research promotes discovery, how discovery produces ano...

Episode Notes A lot of people think that tap dance is related to European dance styles because they look so darn similar, but what if it was really the other way around? Join host Tristan Bruns as he reports on the worse-than-you-thought history of international minstrelsy in England, Ireland, Australia, South Africa and more. Support this program by joining us on Patreon. 50% of all support goes...

Episode Notes People often say “you know, tap dance is a dying art form”, but they never mention why it is dying, or from what . Has tap dance been wounded in some way? Poisoned? Could it be… sabatogey ! Old cartoon references aside, there are many theories about the decline of tap dance from it’s position as the United States’ most popular dance form in the 1930s to a a relatively niche effort in...