Tap Dancing the Ways That Humans Express

Tap Dancing

The ways that humans express themselves artistically often reflects the social, political and religious contexts of the times of their development. Tap dancing and its evolution is no exception to this rule and the many interesting components that are contained within this artistic tradition indicate a rich history of this performance art. The purpose of this essay is to discuss and analyze the art of tap dancing by exploring its roots and demonstrating the importance of this tradition. The essay will first explore the social and political aspects of tits developments before discussing this dance form in terms of performance highlighting the movements, music and forms of this expression.

The Beginnings of Tap Dancing

Tap dancing is a combination of several different percussive art forms, including African drumming and tribal dances, Scottish, Irish, and English clog dances and jigs. The true birth of this art form came in the United States when these styles began to mix and mingle. Tap is thought to have begun in urban environments located in the urban east coast of America. This was possible because many cultures lived side-by-side in small, cramped neighborhoods. Tap was first seen publicly in the 'minstrel show' sections of dance contests. These were slave-inspired dances, often performed in 'black face'. The contests, however, allowed dancers to learn from one another and copy each other's styles, thus the dance form grew and changed. Still, while early tap used percussive sound, taps did not appear on shoes until the 1920's.

Morse (2008) described these early beginnings as a melting pot of many different cultures that inherently expressed the social and political views of its participants. He wrote " Tap Dance as we know it today is an amalgamation of many different styles of early dance, and even some non-verbal communication. Performers copied various African, Irish, and British dances that focused on intricate rhythms, as new styles and descriptive names were used. These later dances found their way to the Americas, and eventually evolved into modern tap." In any case, tap dancing's roots were of a mixed nature and derived from immigrant culture.

Tap dancing as a result has evolved over the years and what we see today as tap dancing has been known by many different names and styles throughout its development. Nevin (2012) explained its growth in evolutionary terms. He suggested that "tap is an art that has never really tried to define itself; there's just too much of it. It was 200 years before tap started being something that you saw on a stage, and another 50 or so before it became known as "tap dancing" at the beginning of the 20th century. For another 50 or 60 years, the art went from lighting up Vaudeville stages to its multi-faceted explosion in uncounted Hollywood musicals, and even though by 1990 it seemed to be getting a little lost in the emerging empires of concert dance and media culture, it was still a huge, if less visible, force."

Tap dance developed from people listening to and watching each other dance in the street, dance hall, or social club where steps were shared, stolen and reinvented. The specific movements and techniques displayed communicated visually a rhythmic exchange between dancers and musicians. The dynamic and involving process of copying and weaving other styles to invent something new is most important to tap's development and has set it apart from many other more classic forms of dance.

Despite its popularity to most of the American public, however, tap has been a controversial issue for African-Americans. Because tap was initially meant to be a mockery of early slaves, many African-Americans protested the popularity of tap dancing, which even until the 1960's still contained irreverent references to black slavery. Certain movements of the feet in tap dance were originally meant to indicate clumsiness, buffoonery and running away. While these moves were eventually diluted by other influences, the idea of the dance remained to many.

As a result of this type of development, tap dancing reflects many of the values and principles of each ethnic group that contributed to its development. Dancing is inherently spiritual so hiding such influences is unlikely. But to understand this form of expression each contributing group's social and political attitudes must be taken into consideration in order to gain a complete understanding of this art.

Modern Tap Dancing

Tap dancing is different than many other forms of dance due to its rhythmic style that uses the sounds of the feet tapping on the ground as part of the performance. Unlike ballet where the dancing is silent, the feet of the tap dancing performer must stay in perfect rhythm providing both a source of music and a reaction to it at the same time. This also limits the movements that are seen in tap dancing. The dancer's feet must stay close to the ground and stay on pace with the accompanying music.

Tap dancing can be done anywhere and with any types of props and costumes making this art a grass roots type exploration into movement and rhythm. Since tap dancing is based primarily on the beat of rhythms, the music that best accompanies this type of dance must be rhythmic with well timed beats. Jazz and swing music appears to have the best marriage with this style of dance and is used most frequently in today's expression of the art.