Resources for Beginner Tap Dancers

The Free Tap Dance Dictionary

This is a really great resource for beginner tap dancers who want to learn essential tap vocabulary! Tap steps like Back Essence and Waltz Clog are written out in multiple ways (counts and movements), plus many are clickable and lead to free videos demonstrating those steps.

Explanations of Foundational Tap Steps

There's a lot to digest in the tap dance dictionary above. The link above leads to a single page on the Tap Dancing Resources site that offers a quick explanation of the basic tap steps that we combine to form things like the Buffalo and time steps. You can see some of these foundational tap steps demonstrated here.

Free Online Tap Dance Lessons

Rod Howell, creator of United Taps and all around nice guy, has made a number of his lessons for beginners available at no cost. If you've never taken tap classes before, start with Beginner Lesson 1!

Just TAP's Beginner Videos

The video in the link above demonstrates what are arguably the most important tap steps for any beginner. Once you have some basics down, check out their guide to tapping faster for beginner tap dancers.

Learn a Beginner Tap Combination

Once you've learned a few basic tap steps, why not try putting them together by learning a short combo? Here's another!

Happy tapping!

Ready to take that first adult tap class? If you're in the Salem, MA area, check out we have on this season's schedule here: http://www.danceenthusiasm.org/classes

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About Christa Terry

Christa Terry has been dancing since age six, and while she has danced in studio and on stage in ballet and en pointe, jazz, and just about every other form of dance you can think of, tap has always been her passion. That passion grew into a love of musical theater, and she has been blessed to dance in productions of shows from Anything Goes to Sweet Charity. She got her first taste of teaching at the Levittown Public Schools Dance and Gymnastics program. A multi-year alumnus of Dance Olympus in NY, Beantown Tapfest in Boston, and many other conventions, Christa Terry studied extensively under Julia Boynton and took classes with Michelle Dorrance (founder and artistic director of Dorrance Dance) and Josh Hilberman before moving to the North Shore and jumping back into teaching tap classes. As the lead tap teacher at RDX in Beverly, MA, she taught beginner, advanced beginner tap, and fast intermediate tap dance classes to kids, teens, and grownups, and perfor

4 Reasons Why Tap Dance Is the Best Dance

It's no secret that I think tap dance is the best dance. I will literally take any kind of dance class and perform in any genre, but it's tap that has my whole heart. I just feel most comfortable with tap shoes on! Maybe you feel the same way? Or maybe you're not sure yet which style of dance you like best. That's cool - different strokes for different folks! Then again, I'm not above trying to convince people that they should try tap for themselves. So if you've been thinking about taking some tap classes in your area but you're still on the fence, here are four reasons you should give tap a try: Tap Is Entertaining Tap dancers know that our genre doesn't always get the respect it deserves from other dancers, and that's sad. But you know who loves tap? Audiences. Tap may not necessarily be the most serious or most technically challenging form of dance, but it is definitely a crowd-pleaser. People love to watch tap! Maybe because it's a fo

The Two Kinds of Tap Dance (No Really)

I've been tap dancing on and off the stage for about as long as I can remember. Way back when, my dance classes were definitely all about the Broadway tap (or musical tap). We had the sequins and the feathers. We had the time steps and the kicklines and the ramrod straight backs and the big flashy grins. I still have a soft spot for that kind of tap. It wasn't until many years later that I dropped into a tap class in Boston and saw a very different kind of tap. Now before I go on, I should clarify that the title of this blog post isn't actually accurate. I'm half joking, and I'll explain the title in a sec. I'm well aware that there are a number of different historical and modern tap dance styles - not just two - thanks to all of the wonderful influences from different cultures and countries and musical genres that have made tap dancing such a lively and dynamic form of dance. A lot of dance studios differentiate between rhythm tap and Broadway tap for the

You Can Tap With Christa!

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