Lessons in Tap - Week 4 - Part 1 [21/5/24]

 LESSONS IN TAP 

Developing Our Skills - Week 4 - Part 1

[21/5/24]

• This was our first lesson in 2 weeks. We had to put our tap lessons on hold for 2 weeks due to our exams happening when our tap lessons would have been. This meant that in this lesson we would have to go over previous sequences we learnt in past lessons to remind ourselves of the steps. As our exams are now over for certain units, we now have extra lesson time to have an added tap lesson every week before our next show, Spotlight, where we will be doing a tap number/dance in. This now means that every week we now have 2 lessons dedicated to tap, which in total is 5 hours a week. In previous rehearsals, we were quite doubtful that we would be able to learn tap, learn a dance and perfect it in time for Spotlight. These doubts have left us as we now have an extra lesson for tap which doubles the time that we would’ve had. We now have more time to learn a number and get it performance ready. 
• In our last lesson, we ordered tap shoes for the class so that we would all have some as majority of the class had never tapped before (myself included) meaning we don’t own tap shoes. This lesson was the first time we danced with the tap shoes. I personally, found it very fun to actually tap wearing tap shoes as it helps me to understand the steps a bit. Tap is all about being loose and relaxed with your steps. It doesn’t take a lot of effort to make a ‘tap’ sound. When we were learning tap and dancin with just our socks on, I was working took hard to do the steps as I was trying really hard to create a ‘tap’ sound with just socks on. Actually wearing Tap shoes has allowed me to relax more when dong the movements as the slightest move creates a sound so I am not over working myself. By not over-working myself, I am also able to do the movements/sequences at a faster tempo as I am more relaxed with my footwork. 
• At the start of the lesson, we were all trying out our new tap shoes and practicing some steps. This was so we could kind of start to get used to dancing in tap shoes. Some people have tapped before in the class so therefore have worn tap shoes previously to this lesson. In my case, I have never worn tap shoes so I tested them out by going over some of the steps that I could remember. Overall, i found them pretty comfortable to dance in and it didn’t feel too strange. As our tap shoes are brand-new, never worn, we will have to be mindful that our feet may begin to hurt as we haven’t yet broken them in. Rob, our dance teacher, advised us to immediately take the shoes off once we begin to feel pain. Luckily, in this rehearsal, my shoes hadn’t rubbed my feet so I was able to dance with them for the whole lesson. 
• After we started to practice in our new shoes, we got into a semi-circle and went over a couple of sequences that we have learnt in previous lessons. We did recap the basic tap steps - the 6 basic tap steps, to keep the correct terminology for Tap movements fresh in our minds. We also went over them so that we could complete the moves in our tap shoes. We also got taught a couple of new sequences just for us to do to help warm us up before we start working on our actual sequences. The exercise we did was like a ‘call and response’. Rob would do a pattern and we would have to repeat it, making sure we were in time with one another and then in time with rob. This is going to help us with our tempo and making sure we maintain the same tempo throughout without gradually speeding up or slowing down. As a group, our main issue is gradually speeding up the more we repeat a sequence. We also went over one of the first sequences we learnt which was ‘shuffle hop spring tap step step’. We then took turns to do this sequence in pairs in front of the class. This exercise allows us to listen and watch each other and observe potential mistakes that our peers are doing so that we can prevent doing them ourselves. It allows help us to understand what mistakes in tap look and sound like so that we can identify them ourselves. When it was my turn to do the sequence, I made a mistake with my shuffle. After the step, we need to pull our other foot back up immediately ready for the shuffle. I forgot to do this which then resulted in me accidentally adding an extra backward tap. I quickly noticed this mistake and corrected myself once Rob pointed out that I was doing something incorrectly. 
• After this, we worked on the main 2 sequences we learnt. The first being ‘tap step heel toe heel step pickup step shuffle step shuffle step step heel’ and the second being ‘shuffle ball-change tap step heel heel pickup step pickup step shuffle hop step tap step heel heel pickup step pickup step tap step ball-change pickup spring tap heel’. We worked on timings and trying to be in time with one another. We then recapped 6 beat cramp rolls. The sequence for it is ‘Tap step tap step heel heel, toe click, toe toe, heel click, heel heel tap step heel, heel click, heel step, heel click, heel step, heel click, heel step’. These are something we began learning in week 2 but as we haven’t had a tap lesson for a couple weeks, I hadn’t really remembered this sequence week so i had to relearn it. The counts for 6 beat cramp rolls is “1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a 5 and a 6 and a 7 and a 8 and a”.  
• To help us maintain good mental and physical stamina, we had a break to give us a chance to take our tap shoes off to let our feet breathe as well as giving our bodies a rest as we had been dancing straight for just over an hour. Once our break was over, we had some media students come into our lesson to film us tapping as part of a promotional video for the spaces available at the college. While they were filming us tapping, we tapped the sequences we have learnt: ‘tap step heel toe…’ and ‘shuffle ball-change tap step heel heel…’ along with our chosen song which we are making a dance to for our next show, Spotlight. This is the first time we have danced along with the music. I didn’t find it that challenging to do it with the music as I am pretty confident with the sequences as they are the ones we have known the longest and I remember them pretty well. 
• For the last part of the lesson, we moved on to begin actually setting/choreographing our tap number. Our chosen song, is part of the hip hop genre so it has a lot of swag and is generally just ‘cool’. The idea is 2 have 2 groups, kind of in a rivalry with one another. Rob split us into 2 groups. My group includes myself, Verity, Grace and Lola. The other group is Harrison, Chloe, Mathilde and Ellie. Rob started by working on my groups beginning movements. We are in a formation like a square, Verity and Grace in front, Lola and I at the back. We enter the stage with a strut/walk to the beat of the song, with a shoulder dig on beat. We enter from the back of the stage, we then walk to the middle of the stage then down to the front of the stage. Once we get to the front, we do a box-step movement but we all move around in our square, like in a circle. We do tat once until we land back in our original formation. We then do a paradiddle sequence twice which is: ‘paradiddle paradiddle para para paradiddle’. On the lyric, “Follow me” Verity mimes the lyric and starts to walk off and signals us to follow her. We do by strutting in a line. As a group, we then go through the sequence ‘tap step heel toe heel step shuffle step shuffle step step heel’ which we already know quite well rob previous lessons. We do this 4 times. On the lyric, “stop”, Verity and Grace do a pose in relation to the word ‘stop’. Then on the next lyric, “got my crew with me” Lola and I go back-to-back doing a pose. On the word, “cash” Verity and Grace do a pose in relation to the word ‘cash’ and go in towards each other. On the same word, Lola and I do a pose in relation to the word ‘cash’ but we go out away from each other. As a mini group, we came up with some ideas for improv actions to do. One of them was for Verity and Grace to do a handshake into a chest bump. The other idea was for Lola and I to do a handshake which goes into jump where we can then strut together. We can trial these ideas properly in our lesson tomorrow. 

Thoughts & Feelings                                                                                                                                

• Overall, I am beginning to really enjoy tap. I think this is because I am getting the hang of the steps a bit more now and I enjoy the dance style hip-hop and I like how we are entwining both styles of dance together; I think it’s a really cool concept. At this point, I’m not finding anything too challenging to do except from just remembering sequences and their counts but this is something I can definitely work on in upcoming lessons. When it comes to the 6 physical skills in dance, stamina is one that I would say could become a weakness for me. We are doing a lot more tap/dance lessons than normal due to our exams being over and we work hard in lessons and tap for a long time until our breaks we have. I feel like I may become worn out and tired in future lessons. In today’s lesson, I did feel myself loose energy nearer to the end of the lesson. To help to maintain good stamina, I will make sure I have plenty to drink and eat. I will also make sure to take a break when necessary and use my assigned break time wisely to relax and cool down.