Tap dance is dancing whilst making a “tapping” sound with the feet, enabled by wearing shoes with a specially designed metal plate underneath the toe and heel. Tap dance has it’s roots in African and European history. African slaves when banned from playing their drums by slave owners in the 1700’s, instead used their bodies to make percussive sounds, including their feet. This evolved into the use of hard soled and soft soled shoes, and eventually in the 1920’s the addition of steel plates to the bottom of shoes. It is also argued that Dutch “Clog Dancing” was a precursor to tap dancing.
Tap dancing is currently taught in 2 styles – Rhythm Tap where the emphasis is on the sounds, rhythm and musicality of the tapping, and Broadway (theatrical) tap where the emphasis is on the style of dance and use of the whole body to dance.