The Contemplative Tap Dancer

Leftover Post

2010-08-21T11:41:00.000-07:00

I started writing this post exactly one month ago, July 20,2010.
I am going to the St. Louis Tap Festival next week. I've never been to a tap event like that sooo, I'll give it a try. I might totally humiliate myself, but I know it will be fun to be in the midst of so many accompished pros and students alike.I've been spending so much time developing our software that my tap skills have gotten a bit rusty. I am spending time each morning getting in a little practice but man the speed has gone! I could listen to and watch tap for hours but I need to dust off my feet and get back on the boards before I freeze up like the Tin Man.
Anyway, I am looking forward to spending time in my hometown. I grew up in University City, MO, but when I married a navy man, I discovered many new places in the U.S. from San Diego, CA to Jacksonville, FLA and several places in between before we settled in Virginia Beach.

Here I am, back from my travels and deep into August-time flies,etc.!
I must say that my first Tap Festival was so much fun. I actually took four, 1.5 hour classes the first day. I really enjoyed the classes and the challenge to get my feet moving again, and no side effects either. Amazing!The three block walk uphill, each day, from the parking garage to the hotel was good for me, too. At least the walk back was all downhill.
I loved seeing so many talented and accomplished tappers of all ages. The best part was finding that my skills were not as rusty as I'd imagined. I had the privelege of taking classes from Professor Robert Reed (gave us in-depth technique on the riff), Germaine Salsberg (a real lady and crystal clear instruction), Miller & Ben (have you seen their line of tap shoes?Wow!) among others.. Each one had something special to offer. The staff were welcoming and helpful. I look forward to going again. I always say "Dance is my drug of choice" because I always feel such a sense of elation and joy when I am challenging myself through dance.

At the end of each day, I recorded what I had learned in each class using my Tappinese(R) software. I didn't bring my laptop to class this time but I noticed some people observed and took notes on each class. Next time I will just bring the laptop instead of a notebook and do real time note taking. This served to reinforce my belief that Tappinese is a useful, simple to use, timesaving tool. Maybe next time, I'll ask to set up a table and let people try the application.

I especially enjoyed spending time with my sister and my neices and nephews. Distance prevents us from getting together as often as we'd like. We had lots of fun and lots of ice cream.

My next challenge will be mastering the art of including photos in my blog-stay tuned, this should be good!
Let me know if you have been to any special tap events or festivals that I might check out. I'd love to hear about your experience.

Equal Time for Modern and Jazz Dance

2010-07-08T12:01:00.000-07:00

Over the holiday weekend, I was talking to a friend (a non-dancer) about our software applications and why we don't have an application for all dance forms. I reflected on how much work it has taken to get Tappinese and Balletinese applications into production and how much more we still need to learn about marketing to get the word out on them.

Have you ever checked out the cost of professional advertising? Advertising reminds me of a little sign my daughter once gave me. I still have it on my refrigerator. It said " I signed up for an exercise class and they told me to be sure to wear loose clothing. If I had any loose clothing I wouldn't have signed up in the first place! You get the irony!!

Anyway, I told my friend that not all forms of dance have such clearly codified vocabularies. Modern and Jazz dancers use many different terms for describing their movements, sort of a mish mash of ballet terms and their own personal cues for remembering movements or particular segments of the work. Having studied and taught both Modern and Jazz dance, I can tell you that my notes for these types of choreography leave much to be desired after a few years.

Tap dance and Ballet are dance forms with reasonably uniform vocabularies and that is why we chose those forms as our first efforts in development. We all know that there are variations, but for the most part we can converse in the terminology and agree to disagree on certain terms.

I really looked over as many volumes of tap dance terminology as I could find ( starting back in the '70's) to come up with those I included in the application. My bookshelf , like yours most likely, is full of books,and videos by leaders in the field of Tap.I enjoy searching for the overall consistencies and finding the differences among them, as well. I got input from other tappers and used the info to strengthen the application.

I once had the privelege of taking a couple of tap classes from the Master, Honi Coles. I was thrilled to be in his presence. He described his steps like a drummer, making sounds verbally while he showed each combination. I found it easy to understand his method of demonstration and was thoroughly enjoying the session. However, there was a woman in the class who kept interupting with " Is that called a flap ball-change?" or something to that effect, over and over again. Finally Mr. Coles replied , very patiently, "I don't care what you call it honey, but this is how its done! " and the class continued. I need to go find my notes from those classes to record in my Tappinese(R) database.

This blog is taking me back to some very pleasant memories in my life as a tapper. Maybe next time I'll tell you how I got started teaching tap.

Moving forward.

2010-06-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

Great News! I was putting some of my old scripts into labeled folders and I found my choreography notes for a number from "My One & Only". I choreographed that show for a local theater some years ago. I had misplaced the notes for one of my favorite numbers from that show. Now I will transcribe it into Tappinese(R), it will be archived there for future reference and the faded yellow tablet sheets can disintegrate, gracefully, into old age.
Now, back to my story. A friend recently suggested that I enlist several studios or universities to be model sites for testing out the software and giving feedback. This sounds like a great way to get the software "field tested", critiqued and improved. My partner and I could inservice the faculty/staff, on site, giving them a running start in the use of the application. I know that when I taught dance for the school system here, the computer specialist would always give the faculty a brief "hands-on" intro to new applications. I found it easier to learn when someone guided me through the initial operation. I guess dancers are used to that concept! I think we would generate a series of questions to be responded to by the users on a periodic basis. We would ask for their questions, comments, and suggestions, as well.
So, yesterday, my partner and I met with a gentleman from one of the area universities. He is going to set us up with the dance faculty there to see if they will agree to "test" our ballet software. They do not have a tap track(this, I do not understand) so I will keep looking for a school or two willing to take on the testing of Tappinese. Any takers? Feel free to offer advice,ideas or feedback. I hope to contribute something of value to the tap dance community.
As for now, I'll get back to reorganizing, perhaps to rediscover a forgotten or misplaced treasure or piece of memorabilia from my past choreographic undertakings.

Just what is a contemplative tapper, anyway?

2010-06-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

A few years ago, after many spiral notebooks filled with scribbled lesson plans and choreography notes for way too many recitals/musical theater productions and what not, I got this idea about creating a system of notation for Tap Dance. That was the easy part and I really loved the visually intuitive nature of the symbols. Young students especially, took to the symbol representation of the tap movements and it made writing things so much quicker.
Then, I thought, if I could find a way to use a computer in conjunction with this notation, it would be a terrific tool for choreographers, teachers & students to record and preserve their work while maintaining the integrity of that work, just as in a score written for music. It would also save tremendous amounts of space in my workroom and keep my husband from always attempting to clean up some of this "old trash". Honestly, most of it was under 10 years old (well, maybe 15, but who's counting)?
It took a few years, programmers are not dancers and dancers that understand computers do not program. I finally met my partner, Caroline (a rather brilliant software engineer) who was a business coworker with my husband and also a dance aficionado with an appetite for problem solving and going in new directions. It helped that she was also familiar with my work and had helped build sets for some of the my shows. We began to develop Tappinese(R)(pronounced tappin' ease, like Japanese) but initially we couldn't marry the programming with the symbols. Technology was way behind this creative idea of two bright women. Three years ago the programming caught up with our innovation and we were able to produce Tappinese(R), Patent Pending. After a year of trial and error(we were still going where no man had gone before) we had a working program.
I soon learned that many dancers are totally freaked by symbol notation! They had studied and been befuddled by other systems-this was enough to turn them away from our program. Not to worry, I thought, the beauty of our program is that you do not need to use the symbols at all. You can simply choose to use either standard or abbreviated tap terminology, but with the convenience of a single keystroke ease-thereby shortening time needed to record the work. it is really a lot of fun to pop a CD into the tray of my laptop and create dance combinations that I can immediately save, edit, and/or print. Not to mention, copying some of those old notebooks my husband loves so well. That does take some time because I found out my old notations were not that legible after all these years and not as well insribed over the erasure marks. From now on I'll have neatly preserved and accurate class or choreography notes.
What about video, you ask, isn't that the most accurate record? Well, I purchased an instructional tap video with the idea of transcribing it for myself and found that while some parts of it were clearly taught and described, other parts were unclear even at very slow speed playback. How great would it be to have both the video and a written dance score at your fingertips?
My problem now is spreading the word to share our idea. I would love to be able to receive input from tap dancers as to how this software could be useful to them. I thought maybe if I were to share my ideas on this blog about the benefits of using a computer and software as a choreographic tool I could get some ideas in return and see if our creation was a good idea.
If you'd like, check out www.tap-tech.com. In addition to information about the software, there is a free trial version for download(no strings attached) if you'd like to give it a test drive.
Let me know what you think. Please write and give me your input. Meanwhile, I'll be recording my spiral notebooks. I only have 14 years worth left to go.