Considering The Tap Shoe

You’ll never say you didn’t hear them coming: tap shoes, where plates are added to the soles allowing the wearer to make music with each step. They’re the required equipment for the syncopated beats and rhythms of tap, which has been dubbed America’s dance.

The development of the click-clacking, feet-as-instruments art form traces its roots to a blend of different cultural influences.

A pair of Fred Astaire’s dance shoes, part of Boston University’s 20th-century popular entertainment archive, sit in a display case in the Boston University’s Department of Special Collections, Dec. 22, 1997, in Boston. (AP Photo/Angela Rowlings, File)

The percussive element came from the traditions of enslaved people brought to the southern United States from central Africa. In the 18th century, when they weren’t allowed to play musical instruments by plantation owners, they used the rhythmic stomping of their feet as a way to stay connected to their cultures.

Over time, that blended with the fast footwork of dancing styles brought to America by immigrant groups, like Irish step dancing and English and Welsh clog dancing, to evolve into tap. Before metal plates on the bottom of shoes became standard, dancers attached objects like nails or coins to make their sounds.

Tap became popular to watch as entertainment, as in the early 20th century when vaudeville variety shows grew in popularity and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson became one of the few Black men to perform without a white partner in a segregated era.

It became a staple of movies in the middle of the century, with stars like Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, the Nicholas brothers and Shirley Temple showing their tap skills on the silver screen. It faded from that level of popularity as the 20th century came to a close, but still had bright stars and moments, including dancers Gregory Hines and Savion Glover and in the movie “Happy Feet.”

Part of a recurring series, “American Objects,” marking the 250 anniversary of the United States.