Tap Tap Tap

Words by Jon Everall

Photos by Alice Denny

A lawyer, celebrant, and publican walk into a bar—in fact, it’s St Leonards YMCA, and despite the setup, it’s not a joke.

These professionals join an assortment of Hastings residents, including an accountant, architect, artist, civil servant, graphic designer, marketer, nurse, podiatrist, teacher and adozen others each week to tap dance under the expert tutelage of Helen Chipchase at her Tap on Tap group.

What brings such a diverse crowd together at the end of the working week? Something special, that’s for sure. When discussing the catchment area, Hastings and St Leonards lose out to the English Channel by half, compared to any inland site. Then there’s the inclination, who can make the effort week in week out to commit to a late afternoon class amid jobs, families and other commitments? And the skill -who can keep up? Plus people’s holidays, illnesses! The troupe varies in experience but they are all encouraged to perform. With each variable reducing the possibility of attendance, that so many remain constant is a credit to Helen, her enthusiasm andthe sense of community the collective embodies.

It’s been no overnight success. Helen, who has tap danced herself since she was four or five, has led Tap on Tap across various local venues since 2014. Whereas most dance classes focus on children and their development (usually through ballet, modern and tap), even dance schools typically only offer adult tuition as an afterthought. Tap On Tap was conceived absolutely with grownups in mind. The name itself was conjured up amid all the other tap dancing puns, as some sort of coalition of tap dancing and drinks taps, early meetups being held in pubs. And that was the point: to take the art out of the studio and into the community. You could wear what you like, and it made it more social, inclusive and appealing.

By day, Helen is a management consultant with a diverse portfolio of clients ranging from finance to Formula 1. She served on the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Disability Committee for nine years and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute ofPersonnel and Development. She’s even shared billing with the Prime Minister. It’s not perhaps the background of your typical dance teacher and therein lies the appeal for such a diverse gang of attendees.

“Tap is this tiny little word for so many things."

Her professional background comes through in conversation, with corporate phraseology peppering the dance chat. It also comes through in her passion and exuberance about the art form. Where once we might have thought of the pizzazz of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, it’s incredibly important for Helen to champion the origins of tap and its Afro-Caribbean roots. Of course, percussive dance also has links to Irish dancing and even medieval clog dancing, but of the core separation between musical theatre style performance and jazz or rhythm tap, Helen favours the musicality of the latter.

Largely considered an American tradition, the history of tap is tarnished with racism, segregation, Hollywood white washing and ongoing failures to represent the forefounders and innovators of the dance. “Tap is this tiny little word for so many things. You can study the great masters who went before you, you can look at musical theatre, you can learn

routines if you want to, you can turn up and treat it like an aerobics class. You’ll have a good workout, you’ll meet some nice people, you’ll stave off dementia and all of those good things, and fight depression but it is also something else. It is an incredible art form.”

It was 1935 when Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson, a black man, held hands with Shirley Temple, a six year old white girl, on a staircase for a dance routine in the film ‘The Little Colonel’. It was the first time interracial dance partners had ever appeared on film. Ninety years later, Helen credits Robinson as a pivotal dancer, with his personal style moving tap more onto the toes than the heel. Despite her praise and wider contemporary recognition, Robinson died a pauper and saw little of the progress he helped initiate. Partly out of respect, partly for fun, Helen’s class is currently learning his routine ‘The New Lowdown’.

“Tap is a very community based dance. I like it because it’s democratic. We get to meet our heroes, we get to take classes with these incredibly generous, gifted humans who will show us their styles, teach us their history, teach us the steps they learn."

There is a universality to tap. If you can dance these moves here, you can dance them all over the world, including in Stockholm at the annual International Tap Dance Festival. Helen describes her annual trip to Sweden as a ‘pilgrimage’ and she has encouraged no less than five Tap on Tap dancers to join her over the years. “Tap is a very community based dance. I like it because it’s democratic. We get to meet our heroes, we get to take classes with these incredibly generous, gifted humans who will show us their styles, teach us their history, teach us the steps they learn. We get to be in a room with them and they answer our questions. I don’t know if that happens in ballet.”

The democracy Helen appreciates so much within the scene is more nuanced within the tap group she teaches. Students come with their own colourful pasts, not just their jobs but their background in dance. There are physical signs of how they were trained or practiced, individuality in how their specialist shoes have been styled. Some have a greater connection to rhythm, others to performance. Invariably, some are fitter or have greater stamina than others. On a day to day basis, any of them could have come from an awful day’s work and brought their frustrations with them. From a teaching point of view, it’s tricky to find the middle ground. Yes, it should be fun, but the work has to be put in. She jokes, “I have some challenging cases in my job. I meet people dealing with sexual misconduct, discrimination, racism and disability discrimination, etc. And then I say, actually, teaching tap -and doing it right -is harder than that!”

“Okay, at that moment, I wasn't ready to hear it, but he’s right, and if I'm the best one in the class all the time, then I'm in the wrong class, aren't I?”

Helen takes regular classes in London and Brighton and online. She wants to be challenged and to learn, just as she wants her students to. There was one class she attended a couple of years ago where she felt like she was the worst dancer in the room. Phoning up her partner, musician Rufus Stone, looking for sympathy, he told her that somebody had to be. It’s something she’s taken to heart with her own class. “Okay, at that moment, I wasn't ready to hear it, but he’s right, and if I'm the best one in the class all the time, then I'm in the wrong class, aren't I?”

Helen is a member of the Tap Dance UK Research Network and takes her role as a teacher–not merely of moves but origins –very seriously. Referencing Canadian New Yorker Lisa Le Touche, ”She said the phrase, ‘They didn't skip off the boats’, and it made me think, we can’t separate this art form from its origins amongst enslaved people and its history of oppression. I’m committed to continuing to develop my knowledge and skills to be able to tell that story.”

Before its current home, the classes and one-off events have been held in Blacklands Church Hall, at the back of The Pig and Blackmarket VIP, to name just three. Each venue has pros and cons for tap dancing. Sometimes the floor is not sprung, some venues are without mirrors, and acoustics can be far from ideal. But as Instagram followers to the Tap on Tap account suggest, there is support and connections to countless sites across the area -and groups too, with members of Hastings Borough Bonfire Society, Hastings Traditional Jack in the Green Charity and runners of the Hastings Half Marathon all involved.

It’s this interconnectedness that further reinforces the group as a community of friends and dancers, meeting up within a larger local community in which they live. They performed at the RNLI 200th anniversary celebrations last year at The Stade. There have been fundraisers at the Masonic Hall. They’ve performed on Preservation Sunday at Hastings Fat Tuesday Music Festival and other open events where the class has added to the celebrations and billed entertainment, never at a cost, and always to the benefit of the cause at hand.

Withrenewed energy, Helen has two key priorities for the year ahead. She is working on new choreography which will be premiered in 2026. She is also keen to connect tap dance with live music in Hastings and has brought together a band to take this forward. “I feel excited about that. Given we have such a big music scene, I would love to do more. But we have to up our game now to own a place at that table.”

Novice or returning dancers are encouraged to get in touch and more details can be found on the website and Tap on Tap’s Instagram account. Syncopated steps, scuffs and stomps, rhythmic toe tapping and heeldrop dancing will return to a Hastings venue very soon. https://www.tapontap.co.uk/https://www.instagram.com/tapontaphastings/

Instagram @tapontaphastings