The Melbourne International Tap Festival

Lou Lou, Dormeshia and me
(after Dormeshia's class, hence the 'glow')

Phew! What a day. This weekend, Melbourne put on its very own International Tap Festival. It's small, its a bit hit and miss, but it's a great thing that we have it. Chiefly because it gives local practitioners like moi a chance to learn from a couple of fantastic tap artists who make the trek out from the US to share their knowledge. I don't get the chance to do classes any more now that I'm teaching so much and running a young family, so I get excited at the chance to learn with people of this calibre.

Sunday night was the show...what can I say? There was fantastic and there was good and there was ordinary and there was some stuff that was just erk. But a lot of heart and a lot of hard work and a lot of rhythm, so by-and-large it was fun.

And then today was The Teacher's Day!!!

Got myself a tad worked up before this one, not sleeping properly for 2 nights beforehand because I was haunted with dread that I would be the WORST IN THE CLASS. Or that the Americans would shake their heads when they saw me tap and say I can't believe you're teaching other people...

But I always do this to myself. And of course I was fine, I picked it all up and could do everything and I was by no means the worst in the class. Mind you, I wasn't the best either!

The teachers, Jason Samuels Smith and Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards, were beautiful and amazing and outrageously talented, but also very giving and patient. I think I distinguished myself with Jason, sadly not because of my impressive tap though. My friend Miss Lou-Lou and I were getting photos with Dormeshia and Jason in the lobby and Dormeshia was busy so I said Jason is it okay if we do you first? Yes, I really said that. He looked a bit taken aback and was quick to work the laugh that such a badly phrased question deserved. Talk about Freudian slips ... because, you know, it's not that I don't appreciate my lovely partner and 2 gorgeous kids but Jason is very delicious...I'm just saying.

Lou Lou, Jason and me - the picture really doesn't do him justice!

What else? Well a fellow student gave us dirty looks for talking (quietly, mind!) during the class which I can see might have been annoying, but we were discussing the moves, not just gossiping...

I'm so glad I did it. Spare a thought for me tonight, teaching 2 classes with my tired old legs...