This weekend's celebration features special guest Jason Samuels Smith performing Friday 13 through Sunday 15. Smith has the distinction of being the first tap dancer to win an Emmy Award since Fred Astaire's choreographer, Hermes Pan, won in 1954. Smith got his 2004 Emmy for choreographing the opening number for, of all things, the Jerry Lewis Telethon in '03. He got his start when he was only 15 as a principal dancer in Bring in 'Da Noise, Bring in 'Da Funk, and has since danced his way through various music videos and Broadway revues. He's even got a tap workout video.

Alexander's own ensemble, BAM!, will perform on both Friday 13 at 8pm and Sunday 15 at 3pm. It sounds like a big bang, but BAM! performs sensitive, musical pieces. Over the last three years, Alexander has been developing some new works based on music you might think unlikely for tap dancing, such as a Bach partita. He's also choreographed to three versions of Bernstein's classic West Side Story melody "I Feel Pretty." The Sunday 15 matinee also will include noted cabaret vocalist Amy Armstrong. "It's not unusual for a vocalist to be on a tap show," Alexander says. "It hearkens back to the jazz club [tradition]."

Foremost female tap artist Dianne "Lady Di" Walker is the special guest for the three performances of the Celebration's second weekend. On May 20, Arthur Duncan graces the Vittum's stage. Duncan is perhaps best known for his role as the hoofer on The Lawrence Welk Show, although he has had an active career in television and film, with live shows in Las Vegas and internationally. Duncan's no spring lamb, but he still hoofs regularly. "When I called him to invite him," Alexander says, "he asked me, 'Do you want the 20-minute show, the 40-minute show, or the hour-and-40-minute show?' The guy is still performing all the time." The event should be a big inspiration to the Footprints Tap Ensemble, a youth group that also will perform that night.

On May 21, Jimmy Payne Jr. will take the evening with a tribute to his father, dancer Jimmy Payne Sr. Jimmy Payne's Rhythm of Life is an episodic work that intersperses old-style tap numbers with videotaped and projected interviews of old tappers and vaudevillians. It'll be a history lesson for younger folks, and a walk down memory lane for some who were fans back in the day.

Old-timers Ernest "Brownie" Brown and Doris Humphries take the stage to finish off the festival on May 22. Brown, well into his eighties, has taken on a youthful protege and partner in Reggio "the Hoofer" McLaughlin. Humphries was famous for her graceful athleticism, which won the moniker "ballet-boogie." She was a jazz-age queen, sharing the limelight with legendary performers such as Louis Jordan, Dizzy Gillespie, Sarah Vaughan, Billy Eckstine, Doris Day, the Three Stooges and Sammy Davis Jr. We're not quite sure what kind of boogying these elder dancers are doing these days, but there's a heck of a lot of wisdom in those bodies. Alexander says he's passionate about bringing tap dance to Chicagoans because it's what they want. "People are so responsive to percussive dance," he says. "It's not conceptual; it's about rhythm and music. People don't want to think. They need to get away from their cerebral labor."

National Tap Dance Day Celebration Concerts take place at the Vittum Theater Fri 13 – May 22.