The Cincinnati Tap Dance Move

Series Summary

Tap dancing emerged in the 1830’s from a blend of cultures in Manhattan’s original melting pot, the Five Points neighborhood (recently depicted in Scorsese’s film Gangs of New York.) Essentially a blend of African shuffle and Irish jig, tap dance became extremely popular in the first half of the 20th century. The metal plates attached to the bottom of the dancer’s shoes create a percussive rhythm which could either accompany music, or be used as an instrument itself. This popular form of entertainment soon found its way from amateur street performances, to Vaudeville, Broadway, and eventually film and television, where millions were inspired by the moves of Sammy Davis, Jr., Gregory Hines, Fred Astaire, and Gene Kelly.

A recent resurgence of tap enthusiasm came in the 90’s with the infusion of new dancers, such as Savion Glover, who began to incorporate a more personal style into their performances, and essentially made tap dancing “cool” again. In this free video dance class, learn how to tap dance as an intermediate dancer. Our expert tap dancer will walk you through the most basic steps you need to know to get started. Lessons include steps like the booty pop, drawback skips, riffle steps, and a practice routine.

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Emily Larew, and we're going to learn an intermediate tap combination. So let's start counts one through four. We're going to start with a stomp on the eight count, alright, so we have five, six, seven, eight. You have a brush, brush, heel, shuffle, heel, step. No I don't remember where I was. Wait what is it? One more time?, Oh, I was right. Never mind sorry about that. Hi I'm Emily Larew, and now we're going to have a look at an intermediate tap combination. So we're going to start on the eight, before we go to the one. Alright, so we have counts eight one through four. So we have five, six seven, eight, we're going to take a brush back, brush, heel, shuffle, heel, step, you're going to sugar, sugar, sugar, sugar, alright. Try it again. Six, seven, eight, brush, heel, shuffle, heel, step, sugar, sugar. Good. Five, six, seven, eight, and a one and two and three. On your four, you're going to pivot your hips are going to go out on four. Good. Ready, five, six, seven, eight, brush, heel, shuffle, heel, step, sugar, sugar, whoo, and your hands come down, alright. So I want you to pretend like someone came up behind you and whoo, pushed you around, alright. So make sure you don't do that little, make it big. Alright, one more time, five, six, seven, eight, brush, heel, shuffle, heel, step, sugar, sugar, whoo, good. And that was the first part of your intermediate tap combination."