25 May: National Tap Dance Day

Today is National Tap Dance Day. 10 things you might not know about tap dancing:

1. Why today? Because it's the birthday of Bill Bojangles Robinson, famous African-American tap dancer, who was born on this day in 1878. He's perhaps best known for dancing with Shirley Temple in the musical Stormy Weather. While he was often criticised for going along with racial stereotypes in his performances, in his private life he was a campaigner for African American police officers and soldiers. Incidentally, the song, Mr Bojangles, isn't about him. In the song, the street performer is a heavy drinker whose Dog died. Robinson didn't smoke or drink and never owned a dog.
2. Some other famous tap dancers include Sammy Davis Jr, who learned to tap dance at the age of 4; Gregory Hines, an American dancer who starred in White Nights and Tap; Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, and the Nicholas Brothers.
3. Tap dancing has its origins in any number of ethnic dance styles originating in Africa, Scotland and Ireland. Tap dancing also incorporates moves from Waltz and swing.
4. The earliest tap dancers were African American slaves who would dance in bare, callused Feet. Later, dancers would nail pennies to their shoes to make noise.
5. Today you can get tap shoes with metal taps screwed to them. It's even possible, with modern tap Shoes, to tighten or loosen the screws holding the taps in order to adjust the tone of the dance, or create sound effects.
6. Soft shoe dancing is tap dancing without the use of metal taps. This style would use sliding of the feet as well as foot tapping. Sometimes dancers would sprinkle sand on the stage to enhance the sliding sound.
7. Tap dancing can be used to communicate. Dancers could perform specific steps called time steps, which would tell the orchestra how fast to play, and to what rhythm. It's also possible to use a tap dance to communicate in Morse Code. (Now there's a story idea. What are the chances of a person in the audience knowing the Morse code for "Help, I'm being held prisoner and forced to tap dance?")
8. Here's a list of just a few tap dance steps: the shuffle, shuffle ball change, hop shuffle, flap, cramproll, buffalo, Maxi Ford, Irish, waltz clog, the paddle roll, the paradiddle, stomp, brushes, scuffs, spanks, riffs, hot steps, heel clicks, New Yorkers, Shiggy Bops, drawbacks, and chugs.
9. The film Happy Feet features a tap dancing Penguin.
10. At time of writing some tap dancing records are as follows: The largest tap dance lesson: 445 people were taught to tap dance by Julie Dorman in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 21 September 2018. The most taps in one minute was 1,163 by Anthony Morigerato in Albany, New York, on 23 June 2011. Roy Castle, host of the BBC TV show Record Breakers, achieved one million taps in 23 hours and 44 minutes at the Guinness World of Records exhibition in London, UK, on 1 November 1985.

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