Tap Hop is part of The Lessons, a series if video installations investigating the formal, historical and conceptual connections between cultural forms, Tap Hop examines the formal and cultural connections between tap and breakdance…
Sampling is used to fold time into new constellations, producing virtual proximities between disparate points in the past. By reconfiguring the cultural matrix in this way, The Lessons seek to make visible the trajectories of influence that underpin cultural history.
In Tap Hop, by mixing footage from the 1942 comedy Pardon My Sarong and the 1986 television program Graffiti Rock, a dance battle is staged between seminal 1940’s tap group Tip Tap and Toe and 1980’s hip-hop crew The New York City Breakers. The cultural matrix between these dance forms emerge through juxtaposition, including the inverted audio track that has the breakers moving to the beats of tap and the tappers dancing to the scratch rhythms of turntablism.
