the question of Authenticity

I spent my afternoon transcribed a TV script interview between Eye On Dance Director, Celia Ipiotis and the famous tap dancer/choreographer LaVaughn Robinson.  In it he talks about how in the 40s and 50s tap dancing was on the streets, not a "genre" yet, and the arguments they would get into over whose steps "belonged" to who, and how avoiding a confrontation meant revising steps. 


One of dance's great unanswearble questions: who creates movement?  who is credited with the origin, the authentic first kind of movement?  ...with this in mind, choreographer's become mere manipulators, creating only a shuffled puzzle of already coined, expereience, used movements.  As Robinson says, a movement belongs to no one (aka even MJ's famous "moon walk" isn't "his"), tracing back its authenticity can probably be traced back all the way to Africa.  Dance's blurred lines of ephemerality win once again, perhaps.  It's interesting to think about this and in particular, what movements we credit certain people for "creating"...