Quotes About Performance

I feel it's my duty, my job, now to allow people to hear the dance to different genres of music, to ensure audiences have the chance to listen to tap dancing up against all these other styles.

I am realizing and accepting my role as a tap dancer in this world is not only to tap dance for the sake of performance, but through tap dance be able to share and spread a message and congregate with people I would not necessarily be with had it not been for dance.

I don't think we've ever known what the hell's going on when we do Tap shows. It's possible the audience are effectively getting to see more of the movie when we play. You know, they know the songs, so anything we do onstage, whether we're meaning to or not, is an extension of the film. Other than that, I wouldn't understand what's going on.

I think the first role I ever played was the Magic Carpet in 'Aladdin Jr.' I did a lot of tap dancing and not a lot of dialogue. But I loved it so much, and I loved the way people responded to the characters.

I saw 'Purple Rain' in the summer of '84, and, 'Spinal Tap' notwithstanding, it's the greatest rock & roll film of all time. There's so much Prince coming at you that you have to remind yourself he's also a breathtaking guitar player.

'Spinal Tap' began as a mock rock band that we four - Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and myself - developed for an appearance on a TV pilot at the end of the 1970s. On our own initiative, we wrote and recorded most of the songs and performed them live in several music clubs around L.A. before any cameras rolled.

I grew up doing tap, jazz, and ballet, so I understand rhythm and movement and performing.

I tap my fingers and cheekbones before going on stage to calm down. But nerves are necessary; if you ever lose them, it's a bad sign.

I got rid of one bat tap I used to have as I was about to face up, and getting rid of that's made me more stable and able to get in better positions and play, particularly fast bowling, a lot easier.

Every city has comedians who tap into local culture and have success but don't travel well.

I used to love tap, that was favourite, and a bit of street dancing. Ballet I tried to avoid.

My dance shoes - ballroom shoes, tap shoes, ballerinas - are my life.

If I see an audition for a show or a movie, I'll send a tape in. I attack it. The whole time, I'm booking comedy, so no matter what, I always got that coming in. I'm always working on my craft.

My dad died right after performing at the Friars' roast for Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. I have that tape somewhere. There's still a lot of good jokes in there. I mean, that was 1958.

The Southern Baptist Church is a specific culture in itself. So, I had to study, talk to people, watch tape and go to performances to see how Gospel artists move compared to secular artists.

When you're recording to analog tape, it captures performance and you can't necessarily manipulate that in different ways. It is what it is.

I can't get that live and I don't have the time to take the tape, after I've finished recording it, into a little studio somewhere else where I can get a different kind of percussion sound.

My very first audition was on the lot of Paramount, and I was put on tape and it was very nerve-racking. I think it was about 15 pages.

I appeared on a show with Jonathan Harris on it-the Bill Dana show-even before Lost In Space. Someone gave me a tape of it in the past year, but in all these years we hadn't remembered.

As a younger guy, no one wants to be on a highlight or somebody's mix tape for their best plays of the year. For me, earlier in my career, that was something where 'I'm not sure if I should go for this,' not trying to get dunked on.

The stopwatch doesn't lie. The tape measure doesn't lie.

Some shows, like PPG, tape in a group session, which is always more fun because you can play off each other.

You put a song on the record or on tape and you stop singing it. You just don't sit around and sing it anymore unless you're performing. That's kind of sad.

We didn't know anything about comedy duos - Abbot and Costello, Martin and Lewis - we didn't know anything about that. Kim Fields showed us a tape of Martin and Lewis and their old shows and they come through the curtain so we started doing research on them.