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Tap History

Decent Essays

John William Sublett, also known as John Bubbles and the father of rhythm tap, once said, “Listen to my feet and I will tell you the story of my life”(Hill p.10). There is something so powerful about rhythm that people are able to connect to and feel an awakening within themselves. Tap is a form of dance that has been around for a long period of time, it has many roots connecting it back to Irish and African dancing. While it was derived from diverse cultures it is widely known as an American art form however, there were three major influences on tap and how tap became what it is today including Irish dancing, African dancing, and slavery.
Tap History Tap in America soared in popularity throughout the 1920s-1930s. Tap was fairly new, raw …show more content…

While she is not the main tap instructor, she happens to be professionally educated on tap culture. Ozburn acquired her degree of dance at BYU Idaho where she was involved with the school’s dance company that happened to spend a good deal of time focusing on culture of folk dance including clogging. Irish clogging as a cultural folk dance is one of American tap dance’s roots from which it was further developed. Ozburn explains, “I had grown up mainly studying ballet and when I went away to school, learning how to clog and cultural background changed my perspective of dance completely”, as any form of tap dance is extremely different from classic ballet. She further explains, “Depending on the cultural dance we were learning, our costume would be very specific to it. They had all of these elaborate costumes that the dance company has had for years that had designs, patterns and style that reflected the culture.” She further explained to me what she was taught specifically about how tap came to America while she was a part of this very diverse company. Ozburn described tap dance to be a branch of dance with a wealthy amount of ancestry, and while she was mostly a part of Irish tap dancing she said that it was also brought over to America during the time of major immigration as well as slavery and has continued to grow into Broadway …show more content…

She happened to have grown up at Leslie Ozburn’s studio and is the head of the tap department and main tap instructor. She has also had the amazing opportunity to take swing and tap classes from Benji Shwimmer who appeared on season 3 of the popular television show, So You Think You Can Dance. Tap was always her favorite style of dance, she explains, “I fell in love with the rhythm and dynamic precision, there is just something about it that makes my heart so full and when you watch others tap, it makes you want to get up and dance too.” Inglis has been instructing tap for over 25 years now and says that her favorite part is when the “lightbulb” goes off in young dancers and they finally grasp the rhythm and concepts and the start really diving in and having fun with it. Inglis described what makes tap so unique is, “There are multiple parts and layers to it, there is syncopation, beat counts, improvisation and there is so much more than just the dance moves involved due to the percussive tap shoe. There is also a layer of percussion and it has to be precise to hear the beat and rhythm of the dance.” When a dancer is tapping, not only is the dancer able to move and express themselves but they are able to create their own

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