FRED NELSON

Late in life, Fred finds joy – and a ‘rhythm
in all things’ – through tap dance

‘I just be silent, because I know I found my joy. It’s not Jesus, not Allah. It’s a piece of wood. What else can I say?’

After buying tap-dancing shoes for his son on a whim, Fred Nelson found himself enraptured by tap, which quickly became a central part of his identity and life philosophy. In He Who Dances on Wood, by the US director Jessica Beshir, Nelson explains how the powerful catharsis and renewal he feels through tap-dancing on a simple block of wood is something close to transcendent, and why there’s joy in learning new things even as he’s ‘about to leave the world’.