No Maps on My Taps
{{Infobox film
| name = No Maps On My Taps
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| native_name =
| director = George Nierenberg
| writer = Lynn Rogoff
| screenplay =
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| producer = George T. Nierenberg
| starring = Howard Sims
Bunny Briggs
Chuck Green
Lionel Hampton
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| music = Lionel Hampton
| studio =
| distributor = PBS
| released = {{film date|1979}}
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| country = United States
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No Maps on My Taps is a 1979 American documentary film directed by George Nierenberg. The film recounts the history of tap dancing in America through the lives of three influential tap dancers, Chuck Green, Howard Sims, and Bunny Briggs, and showcases their dancing skills in a historic live performance at Smalls Paradise nightclub in Harlem.{{cite news |last1=Kisselgoff |first1=Anna |title=Dance View; TV's Recent Looks at Tap and Nijinsky |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/03/22/arts/dance-view-tv-s-recent-looks-at-tap-and-nijinsky.html |access-date=19 September 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=March 22, 1981}}
The film is a wistful tribute to the careers of the performers and to an art form that at the time of filming seemed to be waning. According to a review in The New Yorker, "Ironically, “No Maps on My Taps,” whose participants regarded it as an elegy, helped to start a tap revival in the eighties. The film was shown in festival after festival. Its stars travelled with it and danced, live, after the screenings."{{cite magazine |last=Acocella |first=Joan |date=June 30, 2017 |title="No Maps on My Taps" is Back |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/10/no-maps-on-my-taps-is-back |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=July 12, 2020 }}
The film won Lionel Hampton a News and Documentary Emmy Award for Outstanding Musical Direction in 1981.{{cite web|url=http://emmyonline.com/download/1980-Nomination_Winners.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170620174647/http://emmyonline.com/download/1980-Nomination_Winners.pdf|archive-date=2017-06-20|website=emmyonline.com|via= |title=THE NATIONAL EMMY AWARDS {{!}} FOR NEWS AND DOCUMENTARY PROGRAMMING" {{!}} June 1, 1979 through November 14, 1980 {{!}} Presented at the Roosevelt Hotel, New York City {{!}} April 13, 1981}}{{cite book |title=The Arts on Television, 1976-1990: Fifteen Years of Cultural Programming |editor1-first=Rebecca |editor1-last=Krafft |editor2-first=Brian |editor2-last=O'Doherty |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f1idRg3iNb0C&pg=PA211 |page=211 |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-16-035926-2 |access-date=September 18, 2021}}
Structure
The dancers all recount their biographies and influences while rehearsing for a gala performance at a nightclub. Scenes of the performers dancing and kidding each other are interspersed with archival images and film footage of their early days. Also shown are archival film scenes featuring performances by John W. Bubbles and Bill Robinson. The film ends with a climactic dance-off in front of a live audience, with music provided by a jazz band fronted by Lionel Hampton.{{Cite web|title='No Maps on My Taps': Film Review|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/no-maps-my-taps-1019463|access-date=2020-07-22|website=The Hollywood Reporter|date=7 July 2017|language=en}}
References
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