Tap Tutorials by Christa Terry

Ready to learn some tap? If you're getting ready to take an adult tap class, it's a good idea to get familiar with a couple of tap steps before your class begins!

Wondering how to do the tap step sometimes called a roller coaster... or an Alexander... or a Broadway or a Shirley Temple? This is a classic tap step that should be in every dancer's toolbox.

Paddle and roll (sometimes called a paradiddle) comes in different flavors! The most basic paddle and roll has four sounds, but you can do a five-count paddle and roll or a six-count paddle and roll, too.

Ready to learn how to do a back essence? It's one of the core classic tap dance steps! It has four sounds and is usually swung.

After you master the single back essence, why not try the double back essence (which has five sounds) and the triple back essence (which has six sounds)?

Remember that unlike ballet, the tap dance lexicon isn't fixed. One studio might call a certain tap combo or step one thing while another studio calls it something completely different!

Want to dance with tap instructor Christa Terry? Check out the Dance Enthusiasm fall season 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

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