Happy Tap Dance Day!

Happy Tap Dance Day! Today we’re celebrating the birthday of the legendary Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson. Actually, across the tap dance community, we’ve been celebrating all weekend!

On Saturday I ‘attended’ the Tap Dance UK festival (proceeds going to the tap artists), and did an amazing Body Percussion workshop with Helen Duffy at 10am, watched the lunchtime panel discussion on ‘Creating work: Process, Development & Funding’ and got some great insight into how they put a show together, and then at 3pm I did Jamie Spall’s challenging tap workshop. We did have some sound issues with Jamie’s workshop, that were resolved part way through, but she’s recorded some additional footage for us to practice from.

Sunday was the day of the National Tapathon for the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, so I spent some time rehearsing the routine after church, before joining the action on Facebook Live at 3pm! My SO filmed me doing the routine indoors with the live streamed tapathon led by Harrison Vaughan of The Greatest Dancer, and then he filmed me again outside in the garden so that I’d have a decent video to share with the people that sponsored me. Participants were supposed to have a run-through of the routine with Harrison before the BIG event, but it never happened, so there ended up being a few subtle changes in the live performance that threw me off slightly. If I’d have spent more time on it, I would have done some improvisation in the pauses. However, I did throw in a double pull-back at the end, just for my sponsors!

Sunday was also the day of Tap Dance Festival UK’s online benefit for the National Health Service (NHS), so despite saying I wouldn’t be doing it, they twisted my arm and I bought a pass. I joined in with the welcome and warm up at 1pm and then the faculty panel Q&A hosted by TDFUK’s organiser Suze Clandon, and joined by Tony Waag (ATDF), Harriet Spence (Theatre Tap London), Vikas Arun (ATDF/Project Convergence) and Jess Murray (Tap Dance Research Network UK), plus special guest Sarah Reich. It was both Sarah & Suze’s birthday, so we sang Stevie Wonder’s Happy Birthday to them and wished them many happy returns! At the end of the panel discussion Sarah led us in a Shim Sham Shimmy, which was so much fun! But after that I was DONE. I totally over-did it this weekend…

Today I am enjoying the Bank Holiday by chilling out on the sofa with my feet up in front of the TV.

(I have a load of tap workshop content to catch up on from this Tap Dance weekend, plus an intermediate class I purchased from Old Kent Road Tap Company, but I’m parking physical exertion for a few days!)

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