Tap dance facts for kids

A tap dancer

Tap dancing is a type of dance. Its main feature is the sound made by tap shoes hitting the floor. Tap dancers wear special shoes with metal pieces on the bottom. There is one metal piece at the toe, and another at the heel.

There are two main types of tap dance: rhythm (Jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap is more about the dance. It is often done in musical theater. Rhythm tap is more about the sound of the tapping.

In tap dancing dancers use their shoes to tap the floor like drummers. Tap shoes have metal taps on the bottom of the shoe to make a sound. The sound you get from the tap shoe depends on how hard you hit the floor, and what part of your foot you use.

Images for kids

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  The best-known tap dancer ever, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson was also the best known and the most highly paid black American entertainer in America during the first half of the twentieth century.

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  John "Bubbles" Sublett as Sportin' Life in the George Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess (1935)

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  Tap dancing class at Iowa State College, 1942

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  Tap shoes

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  Jimmy Slyde tap dancing (National Folk Festival, Richmond, Virginia, 2006)

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  Side view of tap shoe, showing taps mounted to bottoms of heel and toe

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  Metal tap on bottom of heel

See also

In Spanish: Claqué para niños