Monday, July 6, 2009

Toe Druming


Hello I would like to briefly talk about another form of toetap .Called Toe Drumming ;This Verizon of a long time ago dance form .That was done in Music Halls and Vaudeville. Was done with out taps. All you needed was a drum and,a pair of pointe shoes.With a leather drum head and ,metal shell. The snare drum type should not be more than 6 inch's high by 14 inch's wide. This height was good encase the drum broke .you could recover without real damage to yourself. Also,the drum should be able to hold your weight .While tapping on it . The idea was to tap out a rhythm to music .While on pointe . This form of toe tap or toe drumming as it was called predated toetap and was the most likely the driving force into Toetap itself. As performers searched for newer thing to entertain the masses. The performers name in the picture is Lily Elsie. She was a Music Hall performer in the late 1890's early 1900's. This is the only picture of this dance form to survive.

Sansha's TA-11"s

Here are two pictures
the top is the Sansha TA-11 a hybrid shoe .Which is a Sansha fusion pointe shoe with a tap shoe sole and taps on it . The bottom is a regular pointe shoe with toetaps or in modern language pointe/taps .I preferr toetap because the tap are on the box's toe.




















Hello I would like to pointe out Some differences.


Between Sansha TA-11's And a Toetap shoe.


Or, the modern name Pointe /Tap shoe.


My friend Ben wrote to the boss of Sansha .Trying to get them to make a traditional Toetap shoe . With many tries .They still kinda missed the mark. This shoe(the TA-11) is what I would call a hybrid shoe .Consisting of a Pointe shoe and a Tap shoe sole .While you can tap on pointe with it .The shoe which has no tap on its boxfront.Which will give you a muffled sound . You can do all the tap moves and pinte work .Just you can not combine them .Into a real toetap production.


Toetapper Like to break the classic form of ballet . Most dancers do pointe /tap or toetap with out realizing it . When they get a new shoe they tap the point to soften it or , so I am told .Toetaper love to hear there shoes make nose, as to say freedom .From being so rigid and repetitiveness.


Since I am the last person to make these taps . I do know about them . I make each tap to the wearer so they can do pointe work without impedance from the tap.I become a expert in this field. A toetap shoe has the tap on it's boxfront . You can do all most any tap move or dance step. Just on pointe .I have made the taps so,you can combine pointe work into each performace.The Pointe /Tap or toetap shoe, I make are a true fusion of these two arts .




Pointe shoe quiz. Can anyone tell me what shoe my taps are on ?