Guide to Tap Dance Research: Titles to Borrow

From the propulsive rhythm of the African dancer, to the swinging ragtime of the American jazz age, tap dancing has evolved into a unique blend of cultural expression, improvisation and creativity, open to all ages and abilities. With clear step-by-step instructions, The Essential Guide to Tap Dance covers basic steps such as the shuffle, pick up and paddle, before building these into traditional combinations such as the time step and shim sham.

Compiled by musician/folklorist Mike Seeger and dancer Ruth Pershing, Talking Feet introduces us to dancers from the Appalachian, Piedmont, and Blue Ridge Mountain regions of the South. In its various forms--flatfooting, buckdancing, hoedown, rural tap or clogging--Southern dancing involves a great deal of personal style and innovation as dancers create the rhythm of old-time country music--talking blues, bluegrass, hand-patting and western swing.

Here is the vibrant, colorful, high-stepping story of tap -- the first comprehensive, fully documented history of a uniquely American art form, exploring all aspects of the intricate musical and social exchange that evolved from Afro-Irish percussive step dances like the jig, gioube, buck-and-wing, and juba to the work of such contemporary tap luminaries as Gregory Hines, Brenda Bufalino, Dianne Walker, and Savion Glover.

The first authoritative history of tap dancing, one of the great art forms--along with jazz and musical comedy--created in America, What the Eye Hears offers an authoritative account of the great American art of tap dancing. Brian Seibert, a dance critic forThe New York Times, begins by exploring tap's origins as a hybrid of the jig and clog dancing and dances brought from Africa by slaves. He tracks tap's transfer to the stage through blackface minstrelsy and charts its growth as a cousin to jazz in the vaudeville circuits. Seibert chronicles tap's spread to ubiquity on Broadway and in Hollywood, analyzes its decline after World War II, and celebrates its rediscovery and reinvention by new generations of American and international performers. In the process, we discover how the history of tap dancing is central to any meaningful account of American popular culture.

Tap into Improv is a guide for tap dancers, both students and professionals, which provides tools, ideas, and concepts to help any level of dancer become more expressive in their tap improvisation. The guide contains physical, mental, musical and emotional exercises to be practiced either alone or in a group setting. Barbara Duffy has compiled these ideas from her 27 years of teaching improvisation classes in New York City and in 20 countries. If you are a beginner or a professional tap dancer, this guide presents valuable ideas to expand your creativity and freedom.

As the official reference manual of the Dance Masters of America, this tap dance resource contains more than 1,500 up-to-date entries about every facet of this uniquely American art form. It provides a history of tap dance as well as the dancers who defined it. This manual also includes a comprehensive dictionary of tap and dance terminology with a special section devoted to teachers.

This comprehensive guide to tap offers traditional and improvisational instruction for the beginner and new, innovative material for the intermediate and advanced dancer. It reviews the basics, and then progresses through creativity and musicality, rhythm, dynamics, and syncopation. Traditional steps such as the Shim Sham Shimmy are taught as well as contemporary tap. Easy-to-follow descriptions are given for each step.

This one-of-a-kind video is a collection of rarely seen original film footage from Soundies and short films of the 1930's and 1940's. The films come from the private collection of Mark Cantor's Celluloid Improvisations Music Film Archive, a collection of 4000 preserved jazz-musicals, and from the Ernie Smith Jazz Film Collection, of the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

Tap World is an award-winning feature-length documentary starring the most cutting-edge tap dancers from across the globe. Brought to you by the Executive Producers of the highly acclaimed short film, Tap Heat, this documentary follows leaders of the art form who are shaping the community around them. Their personal stories of inspiration, struggle, and triumph are keeping this art form alive and thriving internationally. For the first time, tap dancers of all ages were encouraged to share their individual journey through tap dance to be included in the film.

Documentary filmed in West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia and North Carolina featuring flatfoot, buck, hoedown and rural tap dancing, the styles of solo Southern dancing which are companions to oldtime music and on which modern clog dancing is based. Dances are done to handpatting, talking blues, singing, oldtime bluegrass and Western swing style music.

Master tap choreographer Henry Le Tang demonstrates the basics of tap dancing with dancer Honi Coles.

Tap Dance Made Easy lets you learn tap dance in the comfort of your own home. It's teaching emphasizes correct technique and body placement, explained in accurate musical counts. You'll be tapping in no time and improving with each viewing.

Mark Goodman guides the viewer through step-by-step progressions in tap dancing.

Mark Goodman presents sure-fire methods to improve any tapper, from beginner to intermediate.