Happy National Tap Dance Day! (Trust Us, There's a Ballet Connection.)

May 24, 2016

In the spirit of honesty, we’ll just come out and say it: Here at Pointe, we’re not exactly tap dance experts. But that doesn’t mean we’ve never taken tap, nor that we’re immune to the beauty, technicality and historical importance of tap dance. It’s just that the dance world doesn’t often see crossover performers showing off both their ballet and tap expertise.

Fortunately, Royal Ballet principal Steven McRae is here to show us what that expertise looks like. McRae was tapped (sorry) to play the Mad Hatter in Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland—a part that involves seriously fleet footwork. In this video from World Ballet Day 2015, he displays his prowess:

There’s a lot going on here: McRae, an Australian, is a principal dancer in the UK’s largest ballet company. He’s combining a uniquely American dance style with the music and historical mannerisms of a specific Hungarian folk dance—which itself derived from Romani music.

But that’s the beauty of dance: Its ability to communicate across languages and cultures—even across time. So from one group of ballet devotees to another: Happy National Tap Dance Day!

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