Tap Jam Singapore​​

Glossary

 

Here's an incomplete glossary of tap dance terminology. It's important not to stress too much about what the names of the moves are, but to grasp a basic understanding and execution of said move. Remember that tap dance was brought from the bottom (slaves) up (to mainstream Hollywood entertainment) hence there is a difference in names for certain moves in certain schools of thought or certain areas. 

 

B

 

Ball - dropping the balls of your feet to the ground while the heel of the foot is on the floor.

Bombershay - an Irish inspired move that contains a step, spank & dig. 

Brush - a tap dance move where the toe plate of the tap shoes strikes the floor and your feet moves forward.

 

C

 

Clunk - hitting the side of the tap shoe against the floor. 

Cramp roll - a move that has the foot combination toe, toe, heel, heel. Variants include adding a brush or shuffle.

Crawl - a quick toe heel ball

 

D

 

Dig - putting the back of a heel down, like digging a shovel into the ground.

Drawback - a combination of a spank, heel drop on the other foot, and stepping back on the original foot

 

F

 

Flap - a combination of a brush and a step forward, ending with the weight on your working foot.

 

G

 

Grab off - see Pull back

 

H

 

Heel - dropping your heel onto the floor while the balls of your foot is touching the ground.

Hop - jumping and landing on the same foot.

 

I

 

Irish step - the basic form includes a shuffle hop step

 

M

 

Maxie Ford - a step, shuffle spring toe

 

 

N

 

Nerve - quickly tapping the ball, heel, toe, or riff, mimicking a drum roll

 

O

 

Over the top - a flash step that creates the illusion of jumping over one's foot

 

P

 

Plié - bending of the knees (Ballet terminology)

Pull back - a move that requires a tap dancer to jump and spank both of their feet. Variations include separated pull backs and one legged pull backs

 

R

 

Reverse - executing any combination but on the other foot/side

 

S

 

Shuffle - a common tap step involving a brush forward and a brush backward (spank)

Spank - a brush backwards

Step - stepping on the balls of your foot and transferring your weight over

Supporting foot - the foot where most of your body weight is on

 

T

 

Time step - a tap combination that usually follows a three and a break format, variants being AAAB, AABA, AABC etc.

Toe - tapping the topmost part of the tap shoe against the floor.

 

W

 

Wings - a flash step of scraping the sides of the shoes, spank, and landing from the jump

Working foot - the foot in which you execute a dance move with, usually does not carry body weight