The American style of rhythmic foot stomping known as tap dance was born in the United States during the 19th century, and today is popular all around the world. The name comes from the tapping sound made when the small metal plates on the dancer's shoes touch a hard floor. This lively, rhythmic tapping makes the performer not just a dancer, but also a percussive musician.

Its evolutionary grandparents may well have been:

• African dance to drum rhythms
• African welly boot dance
• Irish Sean-nós step dancing
• Spanish flamenco, where nails are hammered into the heel and the front part of the dancers'   shoes, so that the rhythm of their steps can be heard
•  Step dancing
• Clogging, for example from Lancashire, where there may be no accompanying music, just the noise of the shoes

Tap dancers make frequent use of syncopation. Choreographies typically start on the eighth beat, or between the eighth and the first count. Another aspect of tap dancing is improvisation. This can either be done with music and follow the beats provided or without musical accompaniment, otherwise known as a capella dancing. Hoofers are tap dancers who dance only with their legs, making a louder, more grounded sound. This kind of tap dancing, also called "rhythm tap", is typically found in cities or poor areas, but this is not always the case especially with such a wide [variety] of styles spreading throughout the world. Steve Condos rose out of his humble beginings in Pittsburgh, PA to become a master in rhythmic tap. His innovative style influenced the work of Gregory Hines, Savion Glover and Marshall Davis, Jr. The majority of hoofers, such as Sammy Davis Jr., Savion Glover, and Gregory Hines, are black dancers. Dancers like Fred Astaire provided a more ballroom look to tap dancing, while Gene Kelly used his extensive ballet training to make tap dancing incorporate all the parts of the ballet.

Common tap steps include the shuffle, flap, cramproll, buffalo, Maxie Ford, time steps, pullbacks, and wings.

Paola School of Dance * Paola, Kansas * (913) 755-6828 * (913) 731-6372*Email

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Last modified: 04/18/10