- #Tips on maintaining good technical form in tap dancing trial#
- #Tips on maintaining good technical form in tap dancing professional#
- #Tips on maintaining good technical form in tap dancing tv#
With the exception of her mother, none of the dancers she'd worked with previously had had mobility issues, and she wasn't sure how the lesson she had planned would be received by the 20 students in her new class. She was an adjunct professor of tap and jazz dance at Wagner College on Staten Island, and had taught tap, ballet and jazz to hundreds of students all over the world.Īnd yet, as she walked into Mount Sinai on the day of her first class, she had no idea what to expect.
#Tips on maintaining good technical form in tap dancing tv#
She had spent 15 years as a member of the famed Radio City Rockettes, serving as dance captain and assistant choreographer she'd performed in tours of Broadway musicals and TV specials and danced a duet at the London Palladium with famed tapper Harold Nicholas, who became a dear friend. She put Rupert in touch with the program director, who signed her up for the summer session.īy that point in her career, Rupert had been dancing professionally for decades. One of the students worked at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan and knew that the hospital's recreational therapy center was looking for activities that would interest clients with mobility issues due to stroke, head injuries, spinal cord injuries and degenerative conditions.
Then, in 2016, she happened to mention it in passing to students in one of the "regular" tap classes she taught each week in New York City. She initially taught the method, which she trademarked as Tap Dancing Hands Down®, at a senior center she also began certifying other dance instructors to teach it. Tap Dancing Hands Down Become a Hit at Recreational Therapy The two had so much fun that, after her mother died four years later, Rupert continued fine tuning her hand-tapping system, thinking other people with mobility issues might be interested. Braun caught on right away and soon the two were tapping away to routines they choreographed, using their gloved hands to create the same distinctive clickety-clack sounds that tap shoes make on a dance floor.
#Tips on maintaining good technical form in tap dancing trial#
It took some trial and error to get the gloves to a point where she was satisfied, but when she did, she made her mother a pair as well, and showed Braun what she'd been up to. Then she stitched another set of taps to the palms and tested the gloves against a bamboo cutting board that she set in her lap, using her hands to execute the same steps she had been performing for decades with her feet. Unscrewing the metal toe plates from the shoes, she stitched them to the fingers of the gloves. Rummaging through the closet, Rupert found a pair of winter gloves and some old tap shoes and got to work. That got Rupert thinking: The stroke hadn't affected her mother's upper body maybe there was a way for her to dance using her hands instead of her feet. "She would sit in her wheelchair talking about tap and choreographing new combinations in her head," Rupert recalled. She'd run a dance studio in Dallas, Texas, for decades and, although Braun was retired by the time she had the stroke, her passion for dance was as strong as ever. Rupert said she got the idea for Tap Dancing Hands Down because her mother had always loved dance.
#Tips on maintaining good technical form in tap dancing professional#
Rupert's all-abilities tap company, Tap: On Tap, which includes both wheelchair users and professional dancers, also will perform. The result has been an adaptive method of teaching tap dancing that she calls Tap Dancing Hands Down®, which she'll demonstrate on May 6 at the New York Metro Abilities Expo. Stroke Survivor Provides Impetus for Innovative Adaptive Tap-Dancing Method Rupert also credits her mother-or, more accurately, a stroke that left her mother unable to walk 15 years ago-with getting her to think more inclusively about the art form to which she's dedicated her life. Her mother, Nita Braun, decided Rupert's legs needed strengthening, so once Rupert recovered, Braun signed the toddler up for dance lessons-something that led to Rupert's lifelong love of dance and, eventually, a decades-long career performing on stages from New York to London. When former Radio City Rockette Mary Six Rupert was 9 months old, she rolled off her father's lap and wound up in a body cast with a broken leg. Tap Dancing is Hands-Down Fun for Everyone
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