PUTTING TAP DANCE RESEARCH IN THE SPOTLIGHT
TDRN UK provides a space for researchers, artists, academics, and practitioners to share knowledge, information, and research around Tap Dance.
Our steering team is made up of nine individuals that are performers, educators, artists, academics, writers, producers and often many of these at once.
We want to reflect a broad understanding of what research in Tap Dance is, and can be by engaging with the public, Academia, the Arts sector and cultural industries. We do this through holding our own events, presenting at conferences and festivals, publishing our own material and sharing information and resources through our website and social media.
Become a TDRN UK Member!
As a member you will support our work as a non-profit organisation and benefit from:
- Free access to 4 ticketed events per year (normally costed at £6 each)
- Automatic links to our month Network Sessions
- Discount ticket price for our annual TDRN UK Summit
- Other discount perks throughout the year…
For further details and how to register as a member here
Tap Dance Research Network UK present a programme of events that brings together tap dance performers, artists, scholars and researchers throughout the UK, Europe and North America.
Whether you tap dance or not, or are simply tap-curious, TDRN UK welcomes everyone to join us as we delve into the richness and diversity of research and creative practices in tap dance today.
Our next Research Festival will be in June 2023. There will be a programme of online events as well as an in-person event on Saturday 24 June at Dancehouse in Manchester, UK.
More info and booking links coming soon!
Monthly Network Sessions hosted by the TDRN UK steering group. These informal but structured sessions that are FREE and open to all. Connect with other people that are interested, or involved in doing research around tap dance.
For the next few sessions we are getting in to all things tap dance and sound! Shoes, microphones, floors, live sound, recording… These sessions lead by Lee Payne and Annette Walker will share information about suppliers, contacts and resources, as well as opening up the chance to have group conversations and ask questions.
Our next Network Session – Thursday 23rdMarch 2023
Solos That Speak – Tones, Textures & Timbres with Simeon Weedall
Read our blog entries for previous sessions so you can see what we have been discussing and get some helpful resources around particular topics.
April 2021: Tap Dance Folk Traditions
May 2021: Tap Dance and Vernacular Dance
June 2021: Tap Dance and Popular Culture
August 2021: Shoes and Taps
September 2021: Building Tap Floors
October 2022: Step Dance with Simon Ramsey Harmer (recording of presentation)
Our Online Talk Series creates a platform for researchers to share their work with a wider tap dance audience.
Next Online Talk Series event – Tuesday 16th May 2023
Moving the Music: Duke Ellington’s Dancers with Allana Radecki
Shaped by the tidal forces of the New World, jazz music and dance are rooted in the Africa where the arts form a unified complex of interlocking relationships. The great composer and bandleader, Duke Ellington, exhalted the African aesthetic tradition, consciously aligning his music and imagination to serve all forms of jazz dance, throughout his long career. Known to keep “one eye on the audience and one eye on the act,” he most frequently called upon tap dancers to “step inside” his music and deliver a range of styles, percussive color and visual excitement to performance. A great collaborator, just as he practiced communal composing with his musicians, he also worked directly with dancers as allied artists. This presentation will share stories of these collaborations gleaned from oral histories and autobiographies of the jazz dancers who moved his music including: Bunny Briggs, Brownie Brown, Peg Leg Bates, Howard “Stretch” Johnson, Alfredo Gustar, Bessie Dudley, Talley Beatty and more.