Making sense with your feet

Tap is like sound sculpture. You start with rough moves and lots of noise, and then through repetition you carve the sounds out until they start to make sense. Tap is a work in progress, and these students are amazing, considering that less than a month before, they could hardly make a sound with their feet, much less a rhythm.

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First Semester Tap

This video was taken at the end of the first semester, after just 12 classes. By incorporating Nanba Movements and other ways of connecting internal body movements, even as total beginners these students were able to perform fairly difficult tap steps at a rapid tempo. The music features Shamisen in a contemporary mode (Agazuma).

Nanba Jazz

Louie Armstrong said that if you have to ask what Rhythm is, then you ain’t got it. But I’ve found approaching Tap through Nanba that rhythm can be taught. Many dance teachers say that you have to feel it with your body, but that advice isn’t of much use to a person who doesn’t know how to feel what is happening inside their body. Nanba takes you right there, and from that awareness the applications are infinite. Many thanks to these students for their talent and dedication in helping pioneer the applications of Nanba Movement to Tap!