The Lost Arts Society - School of Tap Dance

My name is Feonah Rose and I run The Lost Arts Society School of Tap Dance. It is a tap dancing school specifically for adults, whether you’ve danced before or if you’re a beginner. We’re located in Cringilla at the Dansatori Studios on the corner of Merrett & Lake Ave Cringilla. There are classes ranging from a gentle beginners & general beginners through to intermediate and advanced open classes.
When people think of tap dancing, they think Shirley Temple, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire and MGM musicals, but there are two major style variations in tap dance: rhythm (Jazz) tap and Broadway tap. This is not the style of tap I subscribe to as I personally find it too cheesy.
This comes from Broadway tap style focusing more on the dance than the rhythm and is where you find the style of the MGM musicals.
Rhythm tap focuses more on musicality, and practitioners consider themselves to be a part of the Jazz tradition. This is tap as a form of percussion and hence, musical instrument, and this is where my style of tap most comfortably sits…. Think Gregory Hines and Savion Glover….
In applying a rhythm tap framework, tap becomes a very logical dance form to learn. As the focus is on percussion with your feet, it’s this aspect which makes it accessible to everyone, regardless of experience, fitness and general moveability…
You start by breaking the steps down into single even beats and from there build in different rhythms, tempos and tones. Once you’re comfortable with knowing how your body moves, you can add your own flair and touches to make it more fun for you.
Tap dancing is a perfect outlet for the artistically inclined and adventurous senior lady or man. It improves balance, strengthens core muscles and the weight-bearing nature of tap dancing also aids in fending off osteoporosis.

From an aerobic perspective, if you want an exercise that will keep you in shape and that is good for your heart as well, consider tap dancing. Just 20 minutes of tap dancing three times per week is enough to improve your health and get you back into shape.
Also, tap dancing sharpens the memory, and reduces stress, thanks to the sequence of steps to be learned and mastered. This happens as a result of the focus and concentration that are required in a dance class in order to learn and master tap steps and remember combinations. Simply put, you can’t worry about your day-to-day problems while focusing on making music with your feet. As a result, you’ll experience stress relief and also train your body to recover quicker from stressful situations.
But even more importantly, is that you get to experience what is called the heart of dancing. The heart of dancing is about from what happens to you when you begin to move and start to dance; and how this spills out into the rest of your life...