When I was around five years old I started watching Shirley Temple movies on our old television, enthralled with the tap dancing routines of this talented charismatic girl around my age, lighting up the screen. I memorized her moves and tried to reenact scenes in my basement to escape family dramas upstairs. It would be decades later when I bought my own tap shoes, first to tap around the house with my daughter and then to rediscover the joy of it after I paused ballroom dancing.
In my first adult beginner group tap class, I was delighted to learn a “Singin’ in the Rain” routine, but alas that was cut short by the pandemic. Last year I took a private class and was thrilled warming up to the Beatles and Taylor Swift then learn “Another Day of Sun” from La-La Land. No matter what type of bad day I had at work, it was 100% guaranteed I would leave the dance studio spouting endorphins and smiling like Gene Kelly.
In my most recent tap class series I was feeling overconfident the first lesson because I had more dance experience than the other women, who were newcomers—until our wise and experienced teacher asked us to do 2 counts of 8 with improv to express our soul. She asked me to go first, and I panicked trying to remember steps from the La-La-Land number. The steps I did remember did not go well with the music. I danced like a stressed engineer following a logic diagram, who is good with a recipe or prepared speech but not comfortable going off script. The other women with less dance experience tapped with simpler steps than mine but radiated joy and expressed their souls in how they moved their bodies to the 1929 version of “Just a Gigolo.” I felt humbled, and ready to challenge myself again next week. If I learn to improvise tap with heart and soul, I will reward myself with purple patent leather tap shoes like the ones my teacher rocks.
Life Lessons from the Dance Floor 