What Are the Taps on Tap Shoes Made Of?
Tap dancing is a theatrical dance that uses metal plates attached to leather shoe soles to create distinctive, rhythmic sounds. The dance was born in the 1920s as a byproduct of combining the soft shoe dance with buck-and-wing dancing. Tap dancers use precise footwork to tap out beats on hard-surfaced floors using steps such as flap, ball change, brush, shuffle and cramp roll, as well as unique steps created on the fly.
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Identification
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Taps are small metal plates that attach to the heel and toe of shoes with a set of screws.
Types
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DuoTone, TeleTone and Supertone are the three main tap types, but TeleTones are the most popular because they attach with three screws.
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Considerations
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You can buy special shoes with attached taps, attach them yourself to regular shoes or have a shoe shop do the work.
Features
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You can alter the sound tap shoes make by tightening or loosening the screws.
Famous Ties
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Famous contemporary tap dancers include Savion Glover, Brenda Bufalino, Peter Briansen, and Gregory and Maurice Hines of the "Hines, Hines, and Dad" dancing act.
Fun Fact
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In the late 1950s and early 1960s, children attached metal scraps and bottle caps to their shoe soles to mimic famous tap dancers.
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Resources
- Photo Credit Studio Scene, Cutler Majestic Theater, Dance World
