LaVaughn Robinson, dance legend

"NO MUSIC comes from outside in LaVaughn Robinson's tap dancing, but there is great music within the artist."

That was part of a tribute to the Philadelphia dance legend by the Pew Fellowship for the Arts, which handed him a no-strings-attached $50,000 award in 1992.

The fellowship quoted LaVaughn as saying tap dancing is a "self-created art" in which each dancer invents tap dancing.

"They say different things, and they say them with their feet, but it comes from the mind," he said.

LaVaughn E. Robinson, who stormed stages all over the world with his unique dancing style for 58 years and generously passed on his skills to new generations in 25 years as a teacher at the University of the Arts, died Wednesday. He was 80 and lived in Logan.

"Watching LaVaughn Robinson dance, you see his arms tracing great invisible arcs in the air as his feet clatter like chattering teeth on an icy December day," the Pew Fellowship wrote.

Back in 1990, he told an interviewer, "I keep asking myself: Am I going to be here for long?"

He was 63, and if he had known he would still be dancing in 2003, he would have stopped wondering.

Not that LaVaughn ever spent much time contemplating his career, or tallying up his many awards, which included a fair amount of cash.

"I don't much keep up with these things," he once told an interviewer who asked about his honors. "It comes and it goes and that's the ballgame."

In 1990, the National Endowment for the Arts named him a "national treasure."

Although LaVaughn and his longtime dancing partner, civil-rights lawyer Germaine Ingram, were called the "Astaire and Rogers" of Philadelphia, he insisted the comparison was inaccurate.

"My style, and the style of the Philadelphia tap dancers, is 'Eastern.' That means we keep our feet low to the ground, and use loose feet and angles. That's opposed to the movie-picturey California style, like Astaire, where there are lots of big arms and hands," he once said.

Although LaVaughn began dancing professionally in 1945 after his Army service in World War II, he had been hoofing since childhood.

He started dancing on the linoleum floor in the shed kitchen of his family's South Philadelphia rowhouse. His mother hiked her skirt above her knees to teach him his first time-step.

"You could walk down South Street," he once recalled, "and meet up with the best dancers in the city. As a youngster, I put my steps to good use, performing for change on the streets of downtown and South Philadelphia."

It was called "buskin' " and the boys could make $35 to $40 a day, big money in those Depression years.

He took his loose change home to his mother to help support the family. He was the youngest of 14 children.

One of his mentors as a child dancer was Bill Bailey, Pearl Bailey's brother, who would invite LaVaughn and his friends into the old Latin Casino to watch his show. Sometimes he came outside to watch their show.

"His father was a reverend, you know, and Bill thought tap dancing was very spiritual," LaVaughn said. "He believed you had to be 'right' to dance. He was a big influence on my dancing."

Over the years, LaVaughn, with and without partners, performed all over the world: Africa, France, Germany, Israel, Russia; and in this country, from Alaska to Mississippi.

He is survived by his wife of 58 years, Edna; two sons, LaVaughn Jr. and Shelton; a sister, Catherine Bell; three grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.

Services: 11 a.m. tomorrow at the Church of the Redeemer Baptist Church, 1440 S. 24th St. Friends may call at 9 a.m. Burial in Chelten Hills Cemetery.