Ages 3 to 6
Tap
The only class where the child is the instrument. Ballet in the first half for the posture, tap shoes in the second for the sound.
What it actually is
Tap is percussion, played with the feet. The shoes have metal plates at the toe and heel, every step has a name and a sound that goes with it, and the whole point is that the sound is either clean or it is not. That is rarer than it sounds: in most dance classes a child has to be told whether they got it right, and in this one they can hear it themselves. It is taught here next to ballet in the same class, because a collapsed body makes a muddy sound — the posture the first half builds is what the second half stands on. That combined class runs at three to four and five to six, and it is the only place tap is taught here.
What they'll be doing
They can hear if it was right
A clean shuffle sounds like a clean shuffle. Nobody has to tell them. It is the fastest feedback in the building, and it is why they will stand in one spot doing the same step forty times without being asked.
Halfway through, they change shoes
The first half is ballet: positions, posture, holding still. Then the tap shoes go on and the room gets loud. Two halves that ask for opposite things, in one hour, which is most of why the class works at this age.
Counting, trained properly
Tap splits a bar into pieces and asks them to put one sound in each. A dancer who can do that is easier to teach in every other style for the rest of their life, and almost nowhere else is it drilled this directly.
Is this your child?
Tap, yes
- Every surface in the house is a drum: the table, the cup, their own legs
- They hear a rhythm once — a jingle, the turn signal — and tap it back exactly
- They will do one small thing over and over until it comes out clean, with nobody watching
- They picked the shoes that click on the tile, and now they walk that way on purpose
Try flamenco instead
- When they dance it is the whole body — arms up, chin up, a face on. Tap keeps the noise in the feet and the rest of them tidy.
- They need somebody watching. Tap pays off in private, in the sound. Flamenco is danced at people.
- Nothing arrives quietly at your house. Both classes are half ballet, at the same ages — flamenco is the one where all of that is an asset.
What a class looks like
One class, split in two. Thirty minutes of ballet in soft shoes for positions and posture, then the tap shoes go on for thirty minutes of rhythm: one step at a time, drilled until it is clean, then strung into a short sequence. The second half is where they learn the piece they take to the spring recital, and it is the loudest thirty minutes of their week.
- Friday
- 5:00 PM · 6:00 PM