Youth Program Level Breakdown

For our youngest dancers ages 5–6, this is a creative introduction to tap dance using creative dance, games and exercises incorporating basic tap vocabulary. Students explore tap history through books and video on a variety of dancers who have fascinating and important live histories, such as Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Peg Leg Bates, Fred Astaire and more.

Dancers concentrate on learning the basic foundational vocabulary of tap dance, explore music concepts and beginning improvisation. Students learn how to warm up, travel across the floor, and combine different basic steps to make combinations. Students explore a variety of tap artists through video and discussion, both from the rich historical legacy of tap dance and the present day tap community.

Students with 3 or more years of experience build upon their skills and begin to learn historical repertory of the Copasetics such as the famous Shim Sham. Students are introduced to more complex ideas and technique including time steps, paddle and roll combinations, and more challenging choreography. Students explore the history of the Shim Sham and its creator, Leonard Reed, and other tap dance legends.

Students with 4–5 years of tap experience have developed intermediate skills and are ready to learn tap repertory. Students progress forward in tap technique, improvisational skills and classic repertory that has been passed down from a rich tap legacy of the Copasetics, such as the Coles Stroll, the Copasetic Soft Shoe, and parts of Doin' the New Low Down. Students explore complex rhythm time steps, paddle and roll combinations, and begin working on steps such as pullbacks and wings.

Students focus on syncopation and swing, further development of technique, and learning more complicated time steps. Students learn the "B.S. Chorus," pullbacks, wings, over the tops and flash steps, and are encouraged to create time steps of their own. Students look deeper into the pioneers of classic flash tap, and continue to explore modern day revolutionaries such as Brenda Bufalino, Michelle Dorrance, and Gregory Hines.

For intermediate/advanced teens. Students continue cultivating technique, improvisational skills, and creating choreography. They will explore contemporary and historical styles, using a range of jazz and contemporary music. 

The junior ensemble is for intermediate/advanced dancers, and is invitation only. Please contact us at info@tapdancecentral.org or call (646) 921-9705 to discuss enrolling your child.

​​​The Tap Dance Central Ensemble is the resident youth performing ensemble of TDC.