National Tap Dance Day

Tap dance is a type of dance in which a rhythm is formed by the noise of the dancer’s shoes on the floor – Cambridge Dictionary

Tap dance was born in the United States in the early 19^th century through a blending of African and Irish American dance forms and early tap shoes Early tap shoes had wooden soles, sometimes with pennies attached to the heel and toe.

Head over to the Lititz Public Library to learn more about tap dance with these resources and more!

Children’s Books

                             

 Don’t tap-dance on your teacher / Katherine Applegate ; illustrated by Brian Biggs.  Roscoe cannot wait to tap dance in the school talent show until some older boys make fun of him and say that tap dancing is just for girls.

 Tap-dance fever / by Pat Brisson ; illustrated by Nancy Cote.  Annabelle Applegate will not stop tap-dancing no matter what the frustrated citizens of Fiddlers Creek do to make her quit.

Dinosaur dance! / by Sandra Boynton.   Colorful dinosaurs get in the spirit of the dance, performing everything from tap to cha-cha.

Rhinoceros tap / lyrics and drawings by Sandra Boynton ; music by Michael Ford & Sandra Boynton.  Rhinoceros Tap returns in an all-new package to mirror Philadelphia Chickens, with a spiffy audio CD. Written and illustrated by Sandra Boynton and with music by Boynton and Michael Ford, the same team that created Philadelphia Chickens, it’s a read-along, sing-along, dance-along, oink-along collection of truly delightful children’s music.

Children’s Movies

                                   

Dance to the rescue  Put on your dancing shoes! Dora and Boots need you to dance, spin, shake, wiggle, jump, and toe-tap along as they set off on an epic dance adventure!

Happy feet / Kingdom Feature Productions ; Animal Logic ; Kennedy Miller Productions ; directed by George Miller.  Emperor Penguins from Antarctica each express their true love with a special heartsong of their own that expresses their very being. However, the misfit Mumble cannot sing. Instead he has an extraordinary talent to tap dance with almost magical energy and expression. Nevertheless, the leadership of the colony fearfully blames the young penguin’s unorthodox ways for the lean fishing that threatens them all. Defiant in the face of unjust rejection, Mumble and his true friends set out to find the true cause of the famine. Through the friends trials and perils, Mumble learns many things about his frozen world, not the least of which being that his toe tapping talent may be what he needs to save his people.

Molly : an American girl on the home front / Revolution Television ; Red Om Films ; Warner Bros. Television ; produced by Terry Gould ; teleplay by Anna Sandor ; directed by Joyce Chopra.  World War II turns Molly’s family upside down. While her father is away, war breaks out on the McIntires’ home front.

Shirley Temple : little darling collection / Twentieth Century-Fox presents.  Originally released as motion pictures between 1934 and 1940.  Includes colorized versions and restored black and white versions.

Adult Movies

                                             

Cats / directed by Tom Hooper ; in association with Perfect World Pictures ; a Working Title and Amblin Entertainment production.  Oscar-winning director Tom Hooper transforms Andrew Lloyd Webber’s record-shattering stage musical into a breakthrough cinematic event. The film reimagines the musical for a new generation with spectacular production design, state-of-the-art technology, and dance styles ranging from classical ballet to contemporary, hip-hop to jazz, street dance to tap. One of the longest-running shows in West End and Broadway history, it won seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and ran for eighteen years.

Billy Elliot / Universal Focus ; Studio Canal ; Working Title Films and BBC Films, in association with the Arts Council of England, present a Tiger Aspect Pictures production in association with WT2.  Eleven-year-old miner’s son Billy Elliot is on his way to boxing lessons when he stumbles upon a ballet class. Billy secretly joins the class, knowing that his blue-collar family would never understand.

Fred Astaire : [triple feature movie marathon].  Second chorus : Two rival trumpet players vie for the attention of a girl who works for Artie Shaw. — Royal wedding : A brother and sister act perform in London and find true love — The over the hill gang rides again : retired Texas rangers are made deputies of Waco and must fight crime.

Swing time / RKO Radio Pictures presents ; directed by George Stevens ; screen play by Howard Lindsay and Allen Scott ; a Pandro S. Berman production.  Fred Astaire plays a gambler intent on raising $25,000 in New York in order to marry his fiance back home. Romantic complications occur when he meets dancing teacher, Ginger Rogers. Memorable songs include “The Way you look tonight” which won an Academy Award. Swing time, the fifth in the series of Astaire-Rogers musicals, is one of the best, due to the Jerome Kern score, the dramatic dance sequences and beautiful art direction.

Yankee Doodle Dandy / Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. ; screenplay, Robert Buckner and Edmund Joseph ; directed by Michael Curtiz.  A rousing musical depicting the life of George M. Cohan–playwright, entertainer, and composer.

 

Check out these websites for more information on tap dance:

https://www.britannica.com/art/tap-dance

https://ums.org/2019/06/21/from-margins-to-mainstream-tap-dance-history/

And consider doing a web search to find out if there are any tap dance classes offered near you!