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

Comments

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...

Learning the BS Chorus

As much as I love tap dance, I'm not above procrastinating when it comes to learning new steps, tricks, and combos. Case in point: I've had various BS Chorus tutorials bookmarked pretty much forever, and I've been ignoring them for just as long. Why? I've been reading up on procrastination, and it turns out that procrastination is not a laziness issue. It's actually a confidence issue! The BS Chorus is one of those funny things that you find more often in tap dance than in other forms of dance. No one knows who created and performed the BS Chorus, and there are a ton of variations of the BS Chorus floating around. Here's what we do know. The variation most tap dancers are familiar with comes from The Copasetics, who would perform the BS Chorus at speeds that were pretty insane. Crazy, right? We also know that it's called the BS Chorus because inexperienced tappers have tried to fake their way through it for about a hundred years. Here's Charles Ho...

Thinking On Your Feet: Why Improv Should Be a Part of Every Tap Class

Most of my tap students (whether they're young dancers or in my adult tap classes ) are up for trying just about anything. New steps? No problem. Fast combo? They'll practice. But there's one exercise that tends to make almost all of my tap dance students feel just a little bit terrified. IMPROV! Why is improv so scary? It's not actually all that surprising. Most dance classes for kids and adults are relatively structured. The teacher shows the students technique, tricks, and combos, making corrections along the way. But when that same teacher asks students to circle up and bust out 16 counts of unchoreographed tap dancing? Even some of the more confident students may be shaking in their tap shoes. There are a lot of good reasons to jump joyfully into tap improv when your instructor tells you it's time to circle up. Here are just four of them: 1. You'll Learn to Feel the Music This is especially important for dancers who don't have a musical back...

You Can Tap With Christa!

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