Modern Living: Reveille for Taps

In a Miami dance hall, an 80-year-old retired industrialist and his 60-year-old wife shuffle their feet and tap their toes as energetically as the real estate salesman, the undertaker, the fat lady and the others in their class. In a steamy Manhattan studio,’ an eleven-year-old boy wearing a Captain America sweatshirt stomps out a machine-gun-like rat-a-tat tap routine; near by, the blonde 40-plus winner of Coney Island’s Glamorous Grandma contest, in black-and-white-checked hot pants, sharpens her rhythm.

In a Kansas City hotel, a firm renting an entire upper floor threatens to break its lease when a tap class for 400 kids begins in the ballroom above. Skimpy rayon blouses and clunky shoes are all part of the fun. Tap dancing, after decades in the wings, is back on stage for professional dancers, amateurs, weight losers and an increasing number of people who simply like to dance.

Tapsichorean Art. The revival was partly spurred by the choreographing of tap routines in such on-and off-Broadway shows as George M and Dames at Sea and the featuring of tap dancers in TV commercials. But it was 60-year-old Ruby Keeler’s artful tap dancing in No, No, Nanette (which opened on Broadway in January and is still playing to packed houses) that provided the real reveille for taps. Almost from the moment that Ruby clacked back into the limelight, percussive, slam-bang tap, which had languished for nearly 40 years, was popular again.

In dancing schools across the country, there was a sudden demand for lessons in the nearly lost tapsichorean art. Vogue jumped on the bandwagon last March by suggesting that “a few tap lessons might be just the thing to stir up lots of good feelings” and advising readers to call Dance Magazine for details. The response was overwhelming. Dance’s Nancy Mason, who fielded the inquiries, says that for weeks “I was spending most of my day telling people where to go to learn to tap-dance.”

Phenomenal Rise. At the International Dance School in Manhattan’s Carnegie Hall, veteran Tap Teacher Mary Jane Brown, who until recently was working with only six students, now must conduct six classes weekly in the biggest studio to accommodate the school’s 90 tap students. “They want the old corny routines,” she reports. “They love the old tunes like Tea for Two and I Want To Be Happy, and they adore Me and My Shadow.”

Vida Blunden, president of the Associated Dance Teachers of California, says that professional entertainers, who are being called on increasingly for tap routines, helped start the revival. “Many young dancers these days are finding out that they just have to have tap.” Keeping in step with the times, the 100-odd Fred Astaire ballroom-dancing schools across the country are for the first time offering tap lessons. In New York, reports George Connolly, of the National Council of Dance Teacher Organizations, the rise in tap-lesson attendance has been “phenomenal.”

Solo Affair. Shoe and accessory makers are sharing the bonanza. Says Jim Selva, a manufacturer of theatrical wares: “It’s amazing. Our Brooklyn factory, which makes only taps, is turning out 3,000 pairs a day [compared to 1,800 a year ago] and we can’t keep up with demand.” Sales of funky ’40s-style shoes and of children’s shoes with taps attached are rising as well.

Tap dancing is easier to learn than even basic ballet or ballroom dancing. For one thing, it is usually a solo affair, unlike ballroom dancing where a performance depends on one’s partner. “It’s really very much like learning to play the castanets,” says former Tap Star Betty Bruce. “Once you’ve got the basics, there’s nothing to it. If you don’t have much talent and want to do some dancing, tap’s the best thing for you.”

This is not to say, however, that the art lacks intricacies: consider the names of the steps—taps, triple wings, toe tips, pendulum wings, cramp rolls, heel drops, heel digs, nerve taps, hops, jumps, heel cramps and flash finishes. Even that formidable array, however, has failed to dampen the enthusiasm of housewives who want to lose weight, businessmen who seek exercise and kids who revel in the chance to make shattering amounts of noise without risking a reprimand.