Tap dance legend LaVaughn Robinson passed away at Philadelphia’s Einstein Hospital on Wednesday, January 23, 2008. He was 80. The native Philadelphian joined the faculty at The University of the Arts in 1982, built the tap program from the ground up and retired in 2005 as a Distinguished Professor. But that’s only half the story.
“His example of authenticity, artistic mastery and teaching excellence, and his stellar representation of Philadelphia’s mark on the evolution of the art of tap dance will endure,” his long-time dance partner Germaine Ingram wrote in an email to friends.
Known as having "the fastest feet in the East,” Robinson learned to tap on a linoleum floor in the shed kitchen of his family’s South Philadelphia row home and polished his skills at the corner of Broad and South streets. He would eventually share the stage with such icons as Cab Calloway, Tommy Dorsey, Maynard Ferguson, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Gregory Hines and the Nicholas Brothers.
He received many honors for his dancing and choreography, including a National Endowment for the Arts Folk Arts Heritage Award; several NEA Choreographer’s Fellowships; the 2000 Artist of the Year Award, Pennsylvania Governor’s Awards for the Arts; Pew Fellowship for Choreography and Performance Art; and two Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Apprenticeship Awards.
“LaVaughn was a national treasure and his legend lives on through all of the students he taught,” said Dance faculty member Connie Michael.
“His astonishing skill as an artist and teacher is universally acknowledged to have been eclipsed only by the joy he brought to his work and to those around him,” said President Sean Buffington. “His spirit will continue to be felt in the University’s dance studios and in the generation of dancers he helped to mold. His students and colleagues are all richer for having known him.”
For a full obituary, visit http://www.philly.com/inquirer/obituaries/20080127_
World-renowned_tap_dancer__named_a_national_treasure.html.
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