When tap dancer Maurice Chestnut took the stage at City Center this weekend, dressed in black jeans and a t-shirt, he looked like a college student stepping in from off the street.  And when he got to work, along with two other young tappers, performing a piece called Floating, he looked like he was doing something as unremarkable as walking.  While his feet slipped around frenetically, his upper body displayed preternatural ease.  It was only the sounds that his feet was making – the intricate, impossibly fast, speech-like runs of criss-crossing taps – that conveyed the complexity and virtuosity of the dance. 

Like ballet, this kind of dance makes actions that require tremendous physical effort look easy.  It makes demands on the body, and at the same time obscures its stubborn physicality.  The performance reminded me of this photo, by Henry Leutwyler, of the sole of one of Michael Jackson’s bedazzled, banged-up Capezios.  Someone’s written his name right on the leather in grade-school lettering with a ball point pen.  Who else could this shoe belong to?  Michael wasn’t a traditional tapper, but he was, like Chestnut, a very serious dancer.  The photograph is testimony to all the work that goes on behind the magic.