Weekly · bring your own taps · absolute beginners in
Tap Dance Classes in Blackpool
Tap dance classes in Blackpool for people who want to make a racket on purpose. Tap is the one style you can hear yourself improving at — the sound either lands on the beat or it obviously doesn't — and an hour a week in a town-centre studio is plenty to turn shuffles and steps into something with a rhythm inside it. Buy or borrow tap shoes when you're ready; a hard-soled pair will get you through week one. £10 a class, £32 for four.
First noise
Ask once and we'll send the tap night straight over.
Tap has a weekly slot in the town centre. The evening and the studio door aren't printed here — a page like this ages badly and a reply doesn't — so both come to you by email, with advice on shoes before you spend anything.
- £10 a class, or £32 to book four together
- No experience, no rhythm required in advance
- Don't buy taps until you've tried a class
The essentials
- Where Blackpool town centre studio
- When Weekly, evening — sent by reply
- Length One hour
- Level Beginners upward
- Ages 17 – 75
- Partner Not needed
The class
The only dance that answers back.
Tap in Blackpool, from the first shuffle
Strap metal to your shoes and you stop being a dancer for an hour and become a drummer who happens to be standing up. That's the appeal, and it's also why tap suits people who claim they can't dance: the job is a rhythm, not a shape, and a rhythm is something you can hear yourself getting right. This town has been putting hoofers on stages beside the sea for well over a century, so there's a certain rightness to learning it here — and a good number of the people on our weekly class timetable are picking it back up decades after a childhood grade one.
Beginners start with a small handful of sounds — a shuffle, a step, a ball change — and then discover the whole craft is in ordering them and putting them exactly on the beat. It is slower going than styles where a wave of the arm can cover a mistake, because tap has nowhere to hide, and that turns out to be the fun. Nothing is expected of your body except the ability to stand up and shift your weight, which is why the class comfortably holds people in their twenties and people in their seventies at the same barre-less, mirror-lined wall. It is also the cheapest habit going once the shoes are paid for, because the only other equipment tap needs is a floor.
How the hour sounds
A gentle warm-up for ankles and calves, since they do the work, then drills on single sounds until they're clean, and after that a short sequence that grows across the block. Some weeks end with the room splitting in two and trading rhythms back and forth, which is the moment most people get hooked. Everybody works the same phrase, so the room stays together even on the evenings the feet don't. Dancers who want the arms and attitude to go with the feet usually add jazz, and every so often a couple takes a bit of tap into a wedding first dance to give the guests something they weren't expecting.
Four weeks of noise
Week one is loud. Week four is in time.
A block, week by week. Usual, not fixed — ankles that want another week get another week.
Single sounds
Shuffle, step, ball change, and the discovery that relaxed ankles are louder than tense ones.
Putting them in order
Sounds joined into short phrases, counted out, then repeated until your feet stop asking your brain for permission.
Travelling
The same rhythms while actually going somewhere, plus turns, and the small matter of keeping your weight where it belongs.
Up to speed
The sequence to music at proper tempo, and the room trading a few bars each to prove it isn't luck.
Thrown in
What tap does when you're not looking.
You came to make a noise. All this comes with it.
- Timing sharp enough to spot the beat in anything
- Ankles and calves that stop complaining about stairs
- Balance you'll appreciate more each decade
- Concentration with no room left for the week's worries
- Progress you can hear rather than have to be told
- Low-impact exercise that never feels like exercise
- A party trick that needs nothing but a hard floor
- An hour a week that belongs to nobody else
Sensible questions
Tap in Blackpool, spelled out.
Ten questions people ask before their first class.
IMust I own a pair of taps before I turn up?
Not for week one. Any hard-soled shoe that stays on your foot will let you learn the moves, even if it makes far less noise. We don't lend, hire or sell shoes or props of any sort, so once you're staying you'll buy your own pair — and we'll tell you what to look for before you spend.
IICan you learn tap as an adult beginner?
Easily, and adults often do better than they expect because counting rhythms is a grown-up skill. The class is built for people starting from nothing, with each sound taught on its own before anything gets joined together.
IIII did tap as a child. Is this class beneath me?
Returners fit in well, because a beginner-friendly tap class still runs its steps at whatever speed the room can handle. Old muscle memory comes back within a fortnight and there's always a harder version of a phrase available.
IVWhat goes on my feet for a first tap class?
Something loose enough to move in and short enough that you can see your own feet — leggings or joggers do the job. Bring water. Everything else is just your shoes.
VIs tap noisy on the joints?
Loud, but gentle. Good tap is done with dropped, relaxed ankles rather than stamping, and the floor we use is sprung wood, so it's one of the kinder styles for knees and hips. Anything that aches gets a quieter alternative.
VIDo I pay per class or per block?
Ten pounds gets you through the door for one class. Four weeks bought together come to £32, so eight pounds a time. There's no term fee, no uniform and no annual membership hanging over it.
VIIHow far is the tap class from the station?
Blackpool town centre, in a room with a proper sprung wooden floor — tap on the wrong surface is miserable for everybody. The address arrives with your timetable, and it's a short walk from the tram stops and the station.
VIIIIs practising at home going to upset anyone downstairs?
Quite possibly, so most dancers rehearse in socks on a kitchen floor and leave the metal for the studio. Drumming a pattern out on a table with your fingers works far better than it has any right to.
IXDo I need a sense of rhythm to start tap?
No — rhythm is the thing being taught, not the entry requirement. People who insist they haven't got any are usually the ones counting confidently by week three, because tap gives you instant feedback on every attempt.
XCan I come to a single tap class first?
Of course. A £10 drop-in is the sensible way in, especially while you're borrowing shoes to find out whether the noise is as satisfying as it looks. Take a block afterwards, or leave it — either is fine by us.