my name is all one time lover and i am from new york city i was born in brooklyn and raised in queens i've been dancing basically thirty years and try to heal some of the pa literally feel some of the pain hello and welcome to the i'm to be show up close and personal on you hoes the us here to take you through this musical dance we call life and to do that you know i bring on some talented wonderful people in the field to help us make it through that give us a tip so we can make it through today my guest is a wonderful phenomenal award winning tap dancer entertainer musician plays music with his feet your he's been in several broadway plays he's been on t v he is sandman and one of the apollo the legendary apollo and i'm just so excited to welcome omar edwards to the r b b show up close and personal can personal so we showed at the top of the show if you dancin in manila and you spoke about healing the pain and strength in the children and teaching them to know who they are i love that can you tell me do you feel how do you feel for you as you tap to that it's not so much to tap dancing as that it's just any art any discipline anything that takes a little focus would do  something you could do it for yourself so that the the healing process is not much i can do except for show them that i'm going to do me and when you show someone that you're going to win you really really mean it i think that can be that's your medicine right there that's your magic right there is just being able to show so my i'm going to do me so if you see it in you catch on you'll learn how to do you and that's what i was trying to  why do i love tap dance and when did you know that you loved it i knew i loved when i was i don't know when i was about nine years old my grandmother came to me sure here here's a newspaper clipping of your cousin and tapping and i literally looked at it and i honestly didn't care i remember looking at it and i was like oh right right now it's all good and then one day i think we were coming back from a no i earlier in the day i was in public school and sammy was on the cover of jet magazine sammy davis jr yes and it was something so interesting about that that vibe that just seeing that i mean i was like only like eleven yeah you know made this i was i was in a twelve right right so this i was like maybe nine or ten when i saw this thing happening and i looked and i looked in and i opened it up and there was a picture of him surrounded by all these old guys once again something was intriguing about that so i don't know what it was but it was something about that was like what is this yeah and then i went home and there with the news just happened to be alone and it was my mother yeah and she was talking about him and i was  talked i was like who's this like i'm new in this so you know later on that night i went to my grandmother's phone book and i said yvette grover ok and then in the morning i called  famous yeah that was very even like we who is that yeah and he had a right to be less so and i never really you know i let him be where have he wanted to be because i knew that that's how i approached the scene but right luckily i came by and now i could see him staying on stage and then i saw a different experience when i was just lovely because it was tap dancing and all the different generations you have the twelve thirteen year old generation then you had the eighty year old generation and you had  twenty in the thirty year old generation and i got a chance to experience tap as a performance are yes and then one day i called and she's like he's at he had on the jury he had on the sneakers he had on everything that the local popular kid would have but he got it through art so what was interesting and what is so introduction wasn't just art based it was lifestyle based you know i noticed that this was something that was in my family which gave me a right in a person no you know  is i'm watching right from that position awesome from that position i can watch you know and and to the point you know tap dancing is real interesting because there's a point in the has the historical basis the historical basis for tap dancing is like a joke it starts with the slaves who are in the field doing something and in the slave masters noticed this happening and they invited them into the home  now they're in the house doing this for the slave master and he starts realizing what he can do to get this guy off his back and he starts doing any start becoming nice or actually treat and best sort of becomes the the vibe for one hundred years that even if it's sophisticated or not there's something about american history and tap dancing i'm very grateful for some some parts of it because it is grown in it's part of american culture which means part of something that's deep i like that well let's stop there for me and we're going to go to somewhere else in my questions because he came up and talking to deep in history you had a part into  there around america that are like broadway show gravity and the pay is close to a broadway show and they try to really give the people of that town and the area a real thorough quality theater experience so the show fly which partner what they did was they decided to have attack dancer sort of break the dry and this of it just being a history lesson and it's not being a musical but the tap dancing  the actual dialogue is in the dance and most of it with no music and such a difference in that then bringing the noise bringing the funk with you also and yes that was that was the university of insanely in this playing in other league you know and playing in that league with that group of people being around you know save you know being around george wolf and being around there was my first broadway show  just being around that was like it was school i had been touring i had been performing i had and dancing but what i hadn't had to do was be responsible on a star search when i was sixteen years old my my partner danny would jr and we want thirteen times you know and star search and so i was already doing things before i got to know is fun but still when i got there you know the whole thing with tact i said once again the historical basis is i was trying to say before i start and i didn't finish and tap dancing has different levels to it there's a tap dancing the dance and then there's tap which is something you know it doesn't require a sound system it doesn't require your total attention it's just something you see happening that's like you know i'm not to disrespect dance as a whole dancing a lot of the times it's just taken it's the people who do it are all very men too a very technical of the day they write story lies behind it's very meaningful but the people who are watching it sometimes they take for granted so yeah and when it comes to tap dancing well i noticed that savy i was doing great we are just doing when i came around because i didn't come from a dance school i learned how to tap dance like the old guys in holland hang around  do i could do some steps and i learned how to be i'm already personable so i just could deal with people i can deal with this stage so that was never a problem the problem was i noticed that i had way i presented the reason why i close my eyes the reason why i can go there is because i'm trying to give you a spiritual orgasm like miles davis and have you know that it's it's like i'm in a recording studio it's really like i'm making an album you know i tell my whoever my band is if it's my guys or for some new guys i did a show i was on tour in the columbia the five city two of colombia and i had just met i was  dance like like he's dancing for you and i'm dancing for the audience it will never work and the thing will be done in five minutes but check this out i've been playing my instrument for thirty years you've been playing your instrument for thirty years you've been playing your instrument we all know our instruments so what this is is putting member when you really loved music so much and you could just go into the garage with a couple of guys and some guy would start playing something and then the other guy would play something and the reggae i dance to jazz i dance to hip hop but nothing not covering songs creating hip hop songs creating jazz songs just from here first yeah i'll start da all stay within that frame yet we're all growing and this is a chance to answer the kendrick lamar as old as i am as long as i'm creating music i need to be able to answer whatever type of music is being  played so i need tap to be taken seriously so when i come to perform there's a you know two thousand dollars system that is that is in place even if i'm only getting five hundred dollars for the gig here is a haze like that here because i jumping around in front of you know it's not that it's really some beautiful masterful display of rhythm melody harmony and creativity and musicianship yes definitely that's what i'm about and that's what dancing is about there is the dance guys there are the guys who can do tricks and and jump on their heads and i can do flips and splits i do that when i'm working big venues just for fun just to say i said i've got it but all reality our dance  hours and just tap dance and go further in and further in and go further in and open up another doorway in which meets another rhythmic doorway which meets a nother rhythmic idea and then the and that's the before my most favorite creations is a barefoot dance my mother was from monrovia liberia she didn't get her first pair of shoes to she was fourteen years old and her first job was stand the middle of a cornfield on top of or would platform had a way found out he spent his life he's gone but he's not gone he spent his life trying to find out like people know you talk about me in this that he found out the other stuff  all over the world i teach when i'm in town i think you can look at the schedule call up steps on broadway as a school a big dance school in new york city and i'm on their schedules like tuesdays and thursdays when i'm in town   you know i'm tap and he's told as well i've got two more quick ones go for i need you to give me three tips two to three tips someone's watching this and they want to go right out and tap dance or what the three things they need to do first thing go out and get you some shoes and pretend you know how to do it like that yes ok go on you two and start pretending and number leave immediately number to go to my goodness oh my thank you so much for being here i appreciate it here is this has been the army be show with venus up close and personal remember it's never too late to live your dreams and when you do i'll be there and when you make sure you tell someone to tell someone about the beast show and come