Dancers are no strangers to multi-hyphenate careers. But a tap-dancing acupuncturist remains a rarity. April Nieves is not only the assistant director of the Boston-based tap company Subject: Matter, she is also a licensed acupuncturist, herbalist and founder of The Sunny Side: Acupuncture and Healing Arts in New York City. One of the eight branches […]

Chicago Tap Theatre’s Sterling Harris is a study in dualities. An effervescent performer and budding choreographer, he’s an amalgam of his training in rhythm tap on Chicago’s South Side and in Billy Siegenfeld’s exuberant, theatrical Jump Rhythm technique via Northwestern University. “Sterling walks in the room and the energy shifts,” says CTT artistic director Mark […]

With #SocialDisDancing still very much in place, it’s a challenge for dance partners to perform safely, and even harder to perform safely together. But Broadway’s Cory Lingner may have found the solution—on TikTok. He’s using the app to tap alongside some of the most iconic movie stars, including Gene Kelly, Gregory Hines, Ann Miller and […]

I turned to tap at the outset of the European lockdown as a meaningful escape from the anxiety of the pandemic. As a dance historian specialized in dance film, I’ve seen my fair share of tap on screen, but my own training remains elementary. While sheltering in place, my old hardwood floors beckoned. I wanted […]

Deborah Mitchell, executive and artistic director of New Jersey Tap Ensemble, shares tools from nearly 30 years of teaching. Meet dancers where they are. “Use what you’re given instead of imposing what you know,” says Mitchell, who teaches tap to ages 9 to 80-plus. Your job description may be to teach a certain technique, but […]

Improvisation has been my focus for as long as I’ve been able to move to music. At first, I was drawn to the way it transported me into a place of euphoria when things miraculously went well. I thought of improvisation as a force of its own, moving me to make certain choices. But if […]

In fall 2016, Ayodele Casel received a call from the director of Spoleto Festival USA, asking if she could present a show as part of its summer 2017 programming in Charleston, South Carolina. She didn’t hesitate to say yes. Although she had recently premiered a new work, While I Have the Floor, and even performed it […]

Writing in Dance Magazine in 1969 about Tap Happenings, those weekly tap dance jams at the Bert Wheeler Theater in New York City, critic Patrick O’Connor commented on dancers Sandra Gibson and Leticia Jay, the two sole female performers: “Gibson, the first of the red hot ‘soul’ mamas does a number, as does Leticia Jay, […]