The Young & Talented Rachel Lian: 03/01/2008

Wednesday March 12, 2008 Tap for everyone

Tap dancing is all about rhythm and having fun.

By SU-MAY TAN

I AM one of those people who, if someone says, “jump at one”, will probably leap at “five”. So putting me in a tap dance workshop is not really the best idea. Tap Jam: Hittin’, however, proclaimed, “No experience required”, “ALL welcome” so I figured I qualified.

Tap, says Toh Kong Eu, founder of Rhythm Tappers (and organisers of the event), is often treated as a “side dish” compared to more popular dance forms such as salsa, ballroom and ballet.

Boom, chak-chak, boom: Participants at a tap dance workshop conducted by Toh Kong Eu, founder of Rhythm Tappers.

America, however, is experiencing a renaissance of the art, giving it new life and making it “tappable” to not just jazz but practically any song you can think of.

This more artistic version of tap (called “rhythm tap”) is what the Rhythm Tappers are trying to promote via their tap jams (workshops-cum-jamming sessions). Toh explains that the objective is two-pronged: to have something for his students to work towards in class, and to introduce rhythm tap to the public.

In a recent session at the Havana Estudio, Taman Tun Dr Ismail in Kuala Lumpur, over 70 people turned up. Thirty-four were student performers while the rest were family, friends and people who were just curious to see what all this tapping business was about.

“Tap is music,” Toh says. “You can do it to any groove and it can be adapted to any kind of song.”

True enough, the students tapped to everything from pop to funk to disco, dispelling the myth that tap is old-fashioned or boring (and no, Riverdance is not tap).

Highlights included a girl tapper who debuted with a Mandarin ditty, then launched into a saucy R&B numberwhich, when performed by someone who is eight, can only be described as adorable, apart from highly-skilled, of course. Another crowd-pleaser was an impromptu session by three senior tappers who demonstrated that tappers, like musicians, can improvise on the spot.

Unlike other dance forms, tap isn’t about competing or finding a winner. Tap festivals, instead, bring tappers together to “speak” to each other in what Toh calls a “celebration of diversity”. The aspiration of every tap dancer is to develop his or her own voice.

“Some ‘voices’ are fast-paced,” he says. “Others are more grounded and you don’t even have to move very much.”

At the tap jam, non-tappers were not left out, as promised. Mini workshops showed you how to tap with your hands and stomp, activities even the rubber-heeled could do.

“When you first start, you don’t need tap shoes,” Toh explains. “You just want to feel that groove.” Meaning the rhythmic energy of doing something in unison and being part of the whole atmosphere – “a feeling you can’t get by just watching it on stage.”

So is it true that anyone can do this art form that requires you to syncopate toe and heel, and in which every mistake can be heard when there is a step out of place?

Judging from Toh’s students, who range from eight to 60, it seems to be so. Personally, I don’t think tap is as easy as, say, waltzing or playing the piano. As one student put it, “You can do the steps, but the hard part is in keeping with the music.”

I must say, however, that if I could do half a Shim-Sham Shimmy by the end of the evening, there is hope for all. One tap jam won’t turn you into a Bojangles overnight but it will expose you to the concept of having a “voice”, experiencing rhythm or in tap speak, that boom, chak-chak, boom.