Top 101 Quotes & Sayings by Savion Glover

I'm inspired by breath, by the human body - by so many things.

I come from a long line of people who express themselves through the dance. I come from a long line of people who create music through their feet.

The connection of what I do to flamenco lies in the whole lament, whole cry, whole pouring back into the earth and giving energy back to the earth. It's a cry and a celebration. That's what music, sound, vibration should do. It should spark energy in someone.

I never really stop and think about should I put my hat on this way or that, not thinking that little JoJo down the street would be copying that. I'm more conscious about it now and tell the kids that it's not about the shoes or what kind of shoes... it's all about the dance.

Jimmy Slyde was more a musician than a dancer; Greg Hines was more musician than dancer.

I don't deal in terminology, I deal with expressions: colors, shapes, tones, characteristics.

I've changed my whole angle for dance. I'm moving towards moving back rather than hanging out with my peers. I'm reaching back to older dudes for a second.

I'm thankful I am able to continue to share the joy and the inspiration tap brings.

I've come to realize that people dance for reasons of their own.

I started as a drummer. The feet are an extension of that.

I like to be around dancers who are totally committed to the art form, totally committed to the men and women around them.

Tap dancing is like... it's equivalent to music, not only for the African American community, but also for the world. Tap dancing is like language; it's like air: it's like everything else that we need in order to survive. I'm blessed and honored to be knowledgeable of the art form and to be a part of the art form.

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.

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.

I used to think I could save tap. But tap was here way before I was, and it's going to be here after I'm gone.

Tap's foundation is jazz, just like hip-hop, so relating tap-dancing to rap is natural for me.

I realized early on, I'm more interested in Baryshnikov than some dancer who wants to do a rock show with ballet.

Who is Savion Glover? Who is that guy? Good question. I'm a lot of things... Intense... Focused.

My mom always had me and my brother watching old Fred Astaire movies.

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.

I was first introduced to dancing through the TV: I remember watching ballet, jazz and ballroom dancing when I was very little. But I felt no connection with it whatsoever: it was just like watching a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

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.

I'm happy that people think of me as the greatest tap-dancer that ever lived. But it's just a rumor. Because the greatest dancer that ever lived knows everything, and I don't. I'm still learning. I still have a lot of work to do.

It's as if my left heel is my bass drum and my right heel is the floor tom-tom. I can get snare out of my right toe by not putting it down on the floor hard, and, if I want cymbals, I land flat on both feet, full strength on the floor.

I dance anywhere. I just start moving my feet.

We need these figures who don't exactly go against the grain but create a new grain.

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.

What I'm trying to do is bring young people into doing tap so that the art form will keep going.

I love riding my ATV 450.

My style is raw; my style is '95. My style is what I live. My style is my story.

I'm more a percussion instrument than a dancer.

My personal style at this point in my life is more audio; it's more driven on less visual and more musicality. But because of my upbringing, my fabulous mentors and teachers that I've had throughout my dance journey or career, I also possess a style that is of the past. It was just a matter of me reaching back.

Every now and then, someone comes along - we used to call it 'New Jack' - tries to do something new, tries to take all the credit, without acknowledging the past.

I search for different tonalities in my taps. But my greatest pleasure is hearing a note I haven't heard before, hearing a chord that sparks something new.

I was always looking at footage of dancers from Nicholas Brothers to Ralph Brown to Sand Man to Miller Brothers and Lois, and I grew up looking at old footage.

The sound of tap is not 'clickety clickety tap tap,' this monotone thing. The sound of tap has depth. We want you to hear the different highs and lows, the bass, the trebles and the melodies, if you can.

There are many different styles of, and approaches to, tap. My own leans towards a more intellectual view: tap dancing not just for the sake of entertainment but to educate and spark emotion.

If someone wants to be very tight about authenticity or ownership, it just sounds kind of competitive to me.

I actually wanted to be a fireman when I was younger.

I want to share what I have, and I'd rather share it with people that are a little bit more open-minded.

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 can hold a note, but that's about it.

Whatever you do, just learn about what you're doing; get into it.

For me, the importance in learning about the dance is using it as a voice. It's not about a step, it's about a way to express oneself.

Authenticity is the most important thing. You have to know where it all comes from, study who pioneered it.

Everything has to do with meditation. It's a conversation; it's a joy - it's everything.

When I wake up in the morning, I just go.

I wake up, and I'm in the zone... My performance is the continuation of my life.

I like to express myself inside of the work that is given, and I let the dancers do the same.

When Puffy asked me to do the video, I said yes. Cuz it's all about the Benjamins!

Movie making is such a long process, and they only use that one take, although you do it over and over about 30 times. Live theatre is that one time and one time only.

Frank Sinatra changed people's approach to singing. Ella Fitzgerald, Marvin Gaye, van Gogh, they were all part of movements that allowed people to think about their craft differently. They changed the game. These people changed the game.

I was a drummer in a group called Three Plus. We were performing at a club in New York, and my mother signed me up for tap classes. I fell in love from the door... so you can blame it on my mother.

I try to convey the musical notes through dance, take on the music.

They all come from the street - tap, jazz and flamenco. And the streets are always changing. If it comes from the streets, change is the only thing that's consistent.

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.

Tap is still the central driving force of my life. I think and talk in dance.

There are people who take tap class, do a tap dance. And then there are people who know the dance, who know why they take tap classes. Who know why they do 20 shuffles, or 50 shuffles, before they go on.

Whether it is Jimmy Slyde or Lon Chaney or Gregory Hines, their dance shows what they experienced, what they had to go through.

I was very happy with the success of 'Noise/Funk,' but of course, there is a lot more that I have to say about the dance, about the history, about the people involved with the dance and their history.