Isn’t it fascinating how Black American creation can never just stand alone? Everything we create always gets the “co-created” treatment. From rap, to hip hop, to Black vernacular, breakdancing, country, rock, tap dancing and more. Literally everything we originate always magically & conveniently gets the conjecture/melting pot—other groups were also involved revisionist connection and it’s a mystifying phenomenon.
I recently got a comment (which that person ended up deleting) on one of my tap dancing posts that basically said that the Irish invented tap dancing when they immigrated here as indentured servants by way of Irish clogging and only because of the melting pot of Black American culture and some of our dance styles mixing with Irish clogging did all this melting help to form the dance style that is tap.
“Tap dance is one of few dance styles uniquely indigenous to America, dating back as early as the 1500s. While enslaved people were taken from Africa to the Americas through what was called the “middle passage,” they danced to the music of upturned buckets and other objects found on the ships. In the 1700s and 1800s, enslaved Africans performed African percussive dances that transformed into new African American styles, such as the Juba, where dancers moved in a circle, shuffled their feet and clapped rhythmically. This dancing is important because it allowed enslaved people to remain connected to their culture and cope with the conditions they faced in America. *During the same time period, many Irish Americans were living as indentured servants, and historians believe they exchanged dancing styles in the early 1600s on American plantations. The style of the hybridized African percussive dances and Irish clogging became known as “jigging” by the 1800s.
The history of tap dance took a turn in the 1800s, and minstrel shows became the main spectacle of tapping. Minstrel shows were a form of racist entertainment in which white performers would dress up in blackface and depict Black stereotypes in the form of songs, jokes and dances for an audience. Although the minstrel shows were performed mostly by white impersonators, ^a few Black dancers such as William Henry Lane maintained some integrity to the African American origins of tap dancing through the shows. After the Civil War, more African Americans had access to the minstrel show and a heavier focus was put on the technique of tap dancing, and new steps emerged.”
[*the red bolded is what I’m talking about]
[^is precisely what I said]
Also, I’m no one’s tap dance historian but I’ve been researching.
Differences between Clogging and Tap Dancing. (below is from a blog. not my words)
Clog Dancing vs. Tap Dancing: Contrasts in Style and Technique, both have beginnings in America, but they later advanced differently.
Clog dancing is noticeable among Irish step dancers. In clog dance, the dancer wears clogs or wooden-soled shoes that stress the rhythm of their feet while keeping a straight face.
Tap dancers are usually solo dancers; although this dance form is more fun with a partner, most dancers’ tap dance alone. On the other hand, clog dancers dance in groups. They have an arrangement with each dancer in a straight line, all doing the same movements and making the same sounds with their feet at the same time.
Clog dancers make the most sounds with their heels. They make different motions with their bodies going up and down, primarily heavy movements that constitute a significant difference between clog dancing and tap dancing. On the flip side, tap dancers rarely make heavy movements. Their feet movements are light and move their bodies to the tempo and melodies of music instead of the beats.
Clog dancers do not have taps in their shoes because they make most of their leather and velvet shoes with rigid soles made of wood. Whereas in clog dancing, your shoes are buck taps with a metal that enables the clogger to open their toe tips.
Another difference between clog dancing and tap dancing is that clogging is more flat-footed. Jumps are not so frequent in clog dancing. Whereas In tap dancing, dancers use the ball of their heels.
While tap dancing might have similarities to clogging, their styles are pretty different from one another. Tap dancers have just one tap on their heels and another on the toe, unlike clog dancers. Their shoes can change the sounds you hear when you tap them. There are little tricks that clutch the shoe fastener in place when you loosen or tighten them.
Irrespective of whatever style of dance you choose, whether clogging or tapping, they all have a unique history and significant features that differentiate them from each other.
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I would 100% say the immigrating Irish came here and saw what Black Americans were already doing and then imitated and copied what they saw and then fashioned their clogging after it that subsequently created a subset — if we’re going to go with this “melting pot” and say the Irish and anyone else besides Black Americans fused their dance styles to create tap.
As someone said, “The technique of tap dancing is unique and so different from anything Irish jigging/clog offers. It’s more of an improv dance. No stiff, rigid body movement—freedom of the body. Tap dance is part of the jazz tradition. The only thing similarly between the two dances are the percussive sound that both offer...”
Tap as we see it has no semblance to anything because it is completely a Black American created dance style. It is very independent, very unique of itself with no influence. We are progenitors and Indigenous. We have our own lineage & culture independent of anyone.
Oh, and this melting pot metaphor. As the late, great Toni Morrison said:
All this to say, tap dance (and one of its many children, breakdancing) is uniquely Black American made.
*I don’t use the term African American to describe the ethnic group (Foundational) Black American. Simply copy/paste from articles
