Gasps From A Dying Art Form

A rare Gasps interview with the co-founder and current director of the M.A.D.D. Rhythms dance company and the non-profit Making A Different Dancing Organization—Barrett is also the Executive Producer on the Gasps podcast. Host Tristan Bruns talks with Barrett about the new M.A.D.D. Rhythms Podcast Network, Barrett's own upcoming podcast and discuss how important learning the history of tap dance is to becoming a complete tap dance artist. Also, M.A.D.D. Rhythms is celebrating it's 20 year anniversary with a huge fundraising campaign with some truly unique and exciting rewards — check out the M.A.D.D. Rhythms GoFundMe page to make a donation and MaddRhythms.com for reward details.

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In this episode, host Tristan Bruns reviews Brian Seibert's "What The Eye Hears"—a popular, somewhat controversial history of tap dance—and takes a look at some of the reviews of the book that came out shortly after its publication; also, get some input from the author himself from an interview conducted by Bruns.

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On episode three of the GFADAF podcast, host Tristan Bruns uses tap dance to understand the revolutionary text The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by scientific philosopher Thomas S. Kuhn. On this episode, find out where the term paradigm shift comes from and what it actually means; also, learn about the natural cycle of normal scientific research promotes discovery, how discovery produces anomalies which lead to a crises and rebirth, all explained through examples of tap dance performance, technique and instruction. Also on the episode: Why some tap dancers, and some scientists and doctors, too, may be resistant to change, even though it is not only good, but inevitable.

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A lot of people think that tap dance is related to European dance styles because they look so darn similar, but what if it was really the other way around? Join host Tristan Bruns as he reports on the worse-than-you-thought history of international minstrelsy in England, Ireland, Australia, South Africa and more.

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People often say “you know, tap dance is a dying art form”, but they never mention why it is dying, or from what. Has tap dance been wounded in some way? Poisoned? Could it be…sabatogey! Old cartoon references aside, there are many theories about the decline of tap dance from it’s position as the United States’ most popular dance form in the 1930s to a a relatively niche effort in the 1970s. Host Tristan Bruns goes over the various theories of what ails tap dance and even presents one of his own.

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