I decided to spend this week learning more about tap before I learn a combination. I continued my practice with the moves I have previously learned and took the beginning of this week to learn about the history. I feel learning the history of tap will help me improve my tap skills because I will learn what tap has done for other people and know where it came from. Knowing the origin will help me understand tap as a whole.
I discovered that tap is a mixture of many styles of dance. It involves african, swing, irish and clog dancing. Dance came about by people making fun of slaves in the 19th century. They would paint their faces black and “imitate” them in the form of vaudeville. Vaudeville is “a type of entertainment popular chiefly in the US in the early 20th century, featuring a mixture of specialty acts such as burlesque comedy and song and dance.” After they performed their “comedy”, the slaves would imitate the Irish’s imitation of their dancing. In 1882, the metallic at the bottom of the shoe was added by Thomas Rice to add noise. This soon became popular along with tap dance. Tap became a well known and liked form of comedy.
I found this to be rather interesting. I wouldn’t have suspected tap was a form of comedy. I always found tap to be more fun but never something to laugh about. Of course I am a dancer so I don’t find dance humorous unless it is the intention of the piece although, I can see how tap can be comedic by its sounds.
After learning the history, I learned a combination(If you want to learn the combination there is a link at the bottom!!!). This combination took a while to get the hang of. I would always forget one sound or another and I would just forget it at times. Thankfully, I managed to record my combination 3 different times. One was just by counts, another done to slow music, another done to fast(my jam).
This combination was so fun to learn but a little frustrating at times. I would stop the video countless times just so I could get the hang of the first 4 counts and so on. The combination was only four eight counts and for those of you who don’t dance, here’s what that means: Dances are choreographed in eight counts. In a song there are beats that dancers count and they are counted by 8’s(1, 2, 3…). Each count or beat has a certain move or step to go with it. In my video, you will see that I started by counting out the steps. Watching that may clear things up for you.
History:
KAT! You look like you've improved a lot and the amount of practice definitely shows. Keep doing what you're doing! Looking forward to seeing more videos. The origin of tap is really interesting. Are you planning on researching famous dancers in the future?
ReplyDeleteKat, I think it was such a good idea for you to research the history of tap. It gives you a better understanding of the style of dance, and you can see different aspects of it (ie the comedy thing) that you hadn't realized before. I loved seeing the video of you doing the combination - it seems like you've improved a lot and you really know what you're doing. I look forward to seeing your progress :~)
ReplyDeleteLove the video! Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteYou're doing a great job so far! I like how you are starting out with the basics and slowly moving up in difficulty as you continue onwards. I myself have just picked up tap at the start of this dance season so I know from experience how difficult it is when just starting out. Keep up the great work and I can't wait to see how you continue to improve throughout the duration of the project!
ReplyDeleteKat!
ReplyDeleteI loved the video! You are improving so much in tap, and it's hard to believe that you have just started this year. I think that you can show a "before" and "after" clip of a really hard step, or a really hard combination, to show the improvement that you have made throughout the project. Otherwise keep up the good work!
Kat! I loved that you incorporated the history of tap in this blog post. Who knew that certain dances come from impersonations? (or impersonations of impersonations). Tap is such a fun kind of dance to watch; I'm wondering if tap is difficult to learn? I'd really like to hear more of your opinion while learning certain moves. Is there a certain move in tap that you would like to accomplish for a final goal? Anyway, I'm excited to see the finished product!
ReplyDeleteHello! You probably don't know me but I'm a sophomore from afternoon block. When I found out that someone was doing tap I knew I had to go check out their blog, being a tapper myself. You're blog is really interesting; I learned a lot about the history of tap dance that I hadn't known before. There's a huge deficit of good tap dancers in the market right now, so if you're into theater this skill would definitely help! Good job and keep tapping!
ReplyDeleteKat, I loved the videos! It was interesting to see it done slowly and then faster as you worked your way up. The research you did was really interesting. I wouldn't have thought that the history of dance would be but this was actually really cool. Keep up the good work!
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