Chapter 1 - - - Sunday, June 12, 2011 8:35 AM EVEN BEFORE I TURN THE CORNER TO THE THEATER, I CAN SEE THEM ARRIVING. They''re streaming along the sidewalks, carrying carefully ironed costumes in plastic dry cleaning bags, loaded down with coolers and folded lawn chairs. They''re in groups, or two by two, chatting and smiling, coming from every possible direction. A few of the ladies see me and try to wave, but they''re carrying too much stuff, so they have to jump up and down to say hello. I give a short honk of the horn, a quick wave, and a big smile. On any other day of the week, these streets would be busy with state workers making their way to the giant gray municipal buildings just behind us. This is Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and like any state capital across the country, it''s a city where people work in departments with a capital D, where the jobs start at nine and end at five-a workaday universe of offices and cubicles and business suits. But today Harrisburg has glamour.
Today the city belongs to these women. Most of the ladies live within a few miles of here. Many of them will be walking these same sidewalks to the office on Monday. Some are stay-at-home moms with small children. Some are empty nesters with grown children. Many are retired. Some have lived here all their lives; others have moved here from states across the country. The majority of them are grandmothers, although there are some in their twenties and thirties too.
In almost every way, the ladies carrying their costumes are like any other women you''d find living in any midsized city anywhere in America, but with one important exception: every one of them is a tap dancer. In Harrisburg, we''re part of the culture. If you ask people here if they know about our group, the answer is usually "Yes, I''m a tap dancer," or "Yeah, my mom is a dancer," or "I''ve seen those ladies in the Saint Patrick''s Day Parade." I know dancers who practice their riffs while pushing their shopping carts in the supermarket, because the hard tile floors are perfect for tapping. One lady taps while she walks her dog each morning. When she passes the same elementary school, all the kids give her the thumbs-up. It''s not unusual to see a dancer perfecting a routine while standing by an elevator, or waiting for a bus, or sitting at a table at a restaurant. There''s not another city in the country that''s home to so many adult tappers.
We''re the town that loves to tap. Today is the morning of June 12, the most important day on our calendar. It''s our annual spring show, when we perform for our family, friends, and fans, raising thousands of dollars for charity. As I pull up in my car, I see my dancers filing up to the giant iron doors along six separate pathways in the shape of a sunburst-Busby Berkeley couldn''t have choreographed it better. I glance at my watch. In less than six hours, it''ll be showtime. My son Brian climbs out of the passenger''s seat, and we begin unloading big plastic containers filled with all the dancers'' accessories: pink and black feather hair clips; chiffon scarves in aqua, black, white, red, and polka dot; pink sequined wristbands; silver and red sequined hatbands; and red sequined gloves. With the boxes piled high in our arms, we join the stream of dancers going inside.
As we push open the double doors to the backstage area, the sound of tapping and voices just explodes. Dancers are everywhere: chatting, taking photographs. Others are lined up down the long hallway, practicing their arm movements, and the clatter of their taps is ricocheting off the walls. One group is using a storage area as a dressing room; the rest are using the bathrooms, the green room, and the locker rooms to lay out makeup bags, costume bags, and curling irons. The four men who will be dancing alongside all these ladies today have their own dressing room, otherwise known as the men''s bathroom. I adore these guys-and so do all of my ladies. These men are here strictly for the love of tapping, and they''re not intimidated by doing it alongside all these women. In the long, wide corridor behind the stage, the ladies have already staked out their areas for the day.
They''ve unfolded their lawn chairs and are sitting along the walls, tailgating on the marble floors. They''re preparing for a long day of rehearsals before showtime, with breakfast from the big open coolers at their feet. Everyone is wearing comfortable clothes, sweats, and T-shirts. The costumes come later. Backstage looks like a large outdoor family reunion. Brian and I leave our boxes of accessories next to the green room and head for the stage. As we walk out from the wings, we see that the production crew has already set up the giant nine-and-a-half-foot V-shaped light in the center of the stage. During the show, the V will flash white and aqua-our signature colors.
V for Vicki, my name; V for Vicki''s Tap Pups, our group. It was my students who came up with the name Tap Pups. A month after I started teaching my first adult tap class in 1997, Brian took me to see the Philadelphia production of the Tap Dogs, an Australian men''s tap group. I was instantly taken with them and talked incessantly about the Tap Dogs to my class. After our first year together, my original seventeen dancers presented me with a birthday gift. The card read, "We realize we will never be as good as your Tap Dogs, but we can at least be your Tap Pups." My gift was a T-shirt that read, "Vicki''s Tap Pups." The name stuck.
As I look out across the huge circular auditorium, with its four tiers of seats, I see different groups of dancers pacing out their steps for the show, arms linked, feet flying. No one looks up. No one wants to forget a step. For nine months now, these ladies have been coming to their classes once a week, some twice a week, or more, to perfect the routines they''ll be performing today. Seven levels of dancers appearing in fourteen different numbers, each with a different style, different costumes, and different challenges. Now that the big day is finally here, it''s easy to spot the ladies who are nervous. They''re the ones spending every spare second going over the choreography, as if their lives depended on it. In the small hallway that leads to the stage door, I see a group from one of my New Beginner classes helping one another remember a complex sequence they''ll be performing this afternoon.
In the middle of the six of them stands Jana, fifty-four years old, a tall woman with straight, bobbed blonde hair and long, graceful arms. Although she''s just one dancer out of many, Jana''s story is true of so many of my Tap Pups. Ever since she was a little girl, Jana always knew that she''d like to learn to tap-dance, but as a child, she''d never gotten that chance. By the time Jana was old enough to make her own decisions in life, she found herself too busy juggling family, work, and home to make time for her own interests. Only when she was older, and when her children left home, did she realize that this was her time. Maybe she could finally do something for herself. But what activities were there for Jana? For women like us? Not much. She kept hearing experts on TV telling her that she needed to find a passion in order to be fulfilled, but for many reasons, Jana didn''t feel confident that she could try something new.
Besides, she never thought of herself as much of a "joiner"-she preferred doing things alone, or with her family. At this point, Jana had no idea that tap classes for adults even existed. Like most people, she assumed tap lessons were for little girls. Then fate took over. Jana works as an occupational therapist, helping people recuperate from injuries and surgeries. Last summer she was meeting with one of her clients, a woman in her seventies named Elsa, who had recently beaten breast cancer. Jana always asks new patients about their hobbies so that she can get a better idea of how they spend their time. It turned out that Elsa was a tap dancer.
The very next day, Jana met with another new client, Joan. She was also taking tap lessons. Two tap dancers in the same week! This piqued Jana''s interest. She didn''t think too much more about it until a few days later she met with a client named Jeanne. This lady was also-you guessed it-a Tap Pup. "You''re my third client this week who''s a tap dancer!" Jana exclaimed. "I don''t have much rhythm," Jana told the lady in her consulting chair. "I don''t know if I would be able to keep up.
" Jeanne, who was in her sixties, assured her, "Don''t worry! Vicki breaks everything down for you. Trust me, you''re going to love it. Everyone does." Later that day, Jana sent me a note requesting information about my classes. I can still picture her on her first day of class last September. It was a Tuesday night, and Jana arrived at my studio wide eyed and clutching her black-and-white tap shoes in their box, looking like she couldn''t wait another minute to put them on. I''ve been teaching tap to adults for fourteen years now, but I still get a kick out of seeing the new dancers'' faces as they lace up their tap shoes for the first time. Jana was no exception.
She wore the kind of smile you''d expect to see on a child opening presents on Christmas morning. Jana took a few tentative steps, like she was walking across hot coals, and her smile faded. Then she got a little bolder-click, click, click-and her smile returned. The class hadn''t even begun, but Jana had already learned the first lesson of being a Tap Pup: it feels good to make noise. Right away, I asked the da.