Northampton:
Josh Hilberman's knack for talking with his feet helped him reach the top of
the heap of modern tap dancing. But he also likes to talk - period - and to
do other things in performance that bend convention.Hilberman, who lives in Boston and will be teaching and performing Saturday in Northampton, has been known to mix poetry and monologue with his motion. He says he was a high school theater student in Chapel Hill, N.C., when he started classes is tap and jazz dance.
He's never quite let ho of the theater. Why repress it, in choreography's most irresistible form?
At 8 p.m Saturday night, when Hilberman performs to an audience at the Northampton Center for the Arts, he'll come packing pieces of his wide repertoire. "I'm just bringing as much as I can," he said from his Boston home the other day, so as "not to bore the nice people of Northampton who come to see me it."
He's joking, as Hilberman is known for bringing antic energy to his concerts and a roaming imagination that toys with costume and content. There are pieces in which he plays musical instruments while dancing, and moves around, "like a madman," as he puts it.
Given who he is, choosing a website name was easy: Look him us at www.hilbermania.com.
In his Northampton show, Hilberman promises to show audiences a cross-section of this tap styles, including moves he calls " old-fashioned and straight-ahead" as well as more contemporary touched. Whatever the style, Hilberman is widely praised for getting it right. Dancer Gregory Hines last summer called Hilberman, " one of the best of the younger generation tap dancers.
Joining him in concert Saturday night will be jazz pianist and composer Paul Arsianian of Williamsburg - with whom Hilberman says he has worked for a decade - and bassist David Shapiro.
I'm going to be doing everything I know how to do," Hilberman said of the concert.
During the day Saturday, Hilberman will lead two tap-dance classes at he Center for the Arts, one for beginners and the other for more advanced students. (For information on cost and to register, call 586-3471.)
On Sunday at 2 pm, Hilberman will perform a longer piece, "White Jew Blues," at the Beth El Temple in Springfield.
His swing through the area this weekend was arranged by Dee DeGeiso, the co-founder of the Northampton Film Festival, who is now working to launch a "percussive dance" festival in this area.
Life keeps Hilberman in motion, and in commotion.
He's just back from leading a workshop in Munich and will travel this summer to Montana, North Carolina, Michigan & New York. In August, he'll perform in the 6th annual Feet to the Beat Festival in Helsinki, Finland. "I'm the poster child for Helsinki," he said with a laugh.
His schedule mixes performance with teaching, at every stop. He once spent a semester teaching at Mount Holyoke College.
Young performers might wonder how Hilberman decided to forsake theater, as well as other dance forms, and go with tap. His answer is simple. Tap chose him. "Everything else dropped aside. It became my passion."