Tap Dance was developed in the United States during the nineteenth century, and is popular nowadays in many parts of the world…..

The name comes from the tapping sound made when the small metal plates on the dancer’s shoes touch a hard floor. This lively, rhythmic tapping makes the performer not just a dancer, but also a percussive musician.

American tap dancing set itself apart from any other form of tap or clogging dance any where else by the fact that is was born and developed in the evolving jazz era. The rhythms which played a big part in the jazz and tap evolution were due to the historical forced integration of African slave labour, whose loose interpretation of European step dances like the jig and clog coupled with religious African so called ‘juba’ dances and ‘ring shouts’. The syncopated jazz rhythms were incorporated into the dance, where as the other forms of clogging were performed to comparatively straight time, and so American tap was set apart from most other forms of dance. By 1925 metal taps were attached to shoe heels and toes to produce a more pronounced sound.

Tap flourished in the U.S. from 1900 to 1955, when it was the main performance dance of Vaudeville and Broadway. Vaudeville was the inexpensive entertainment before television, and it employed droves of skilled tap dancers. Many famous bands included tap dances as part of their show. For a while, every large city in the U.S. had amateur street tap performers. At the time, tap dance was also called jazz dance, because jazz was the music with which tap dancers performed.

During the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, the best tap dancers moved from Vaudeville to cinema and television. Steve Condos, with his innovative style of percussion tap, created a whole new tap style that he introduced to audiences in Vaudeville, and later to the audiences of film and Broadway. Prominent tap dancers of this period included Fred Astaire, John W Bubbles, Charles “Honi” Coles, Steve Condos, Vera-Ellen, Ruby Keeler, Gene Kelly, Jeni LeGon,Ann Miller, Harold Nicholas of the Nicholas Brothers, Donald O’Connor, Eleanor Powell, Prince Spencer, Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson, Ginger Rogers, , and Jimmy Slyde.

During the 1950′s, the style dance changed and tap lost is popularity, although tap dancers continued to dance for their own pleasure.

In the 60’s a number of events stimulated renewed interest in tap by the emergence of a few tap related shows on Broadway. Then a while later in the early eighties a few films staring Gregory Hines brought tap back onto the map. Suddenly, tap was considered an art form rather than just entertainment.

During the 1970′s, tap returned to Broadway, film, and the concert stage throughout the USA, Europe, and Japan. The public’s interest in watching tap dance has produced several Broadway hits, including the recent “Black and Blue,” and “Jelly’s Last Jam,” and films such as “The Cotton Club,” “Steppin Out,” and “Tap.”

Tap has now been brought up to the 90′s with shows that have a contemporary funk feel as Gregory Hines once said “Tap is here, it’s now”, just as it was in it’s day. Tap rhythms can be used to express any type of popular music that is with us today. No matter how tap evolves in the future its exponents will always be “Tap dancing in the shadow of the masters.”

May 25 was proclaimed as National Tap Dance day by a vote of Congress in 1989 (May 25 was chosen because it is the birthday of famous tapper Bill “Bojangles” Robinson), and is celebrated by enthusiasts across the world. Recent Presidential Awards in the United State of America have been given to tap legend Honi Coles and the Nicholas Brothers for their lifelong contributions to the arts. Perhaps Gregory Hines said it best: “Tap is here, Now!”