The Christmas Tap Concert 2011

Confirmation that my tap school has grown in size came at the end of the year when I realised I needed to hire an outside hall to hold the Christmas Concert. So we lugged some chairs and my tap boards over to the local primary school and set up there on Saturday morning. My goodness it was nice to have a big space. Plenty of room onstage, offstage and in the audience.  The concert itself went really well apart from a stereo malfunction, which was eventually resolved.  I thought I'd show off some of my favourite pictures, taken by my Dad.  Warning: there's quite a few!  And if that's not enough for you, you can check out the full set by clicking here.

First up is a behind the scenes type shot, where you can see Fixit and his mate desperately trying to sort the stereo system.  This is before Fixit's friend's wife arrived with the serious amp, so we were making do with another friend's computer speakers.  While this was going on, the littlest class started their routine 3, maybe 4 times and were looking adorably confused with all the stop-starting.  Also note the little offstage elves watching the show from the kitchen area.  Nell and I had discussed keeping kids out of the kitchen for the duration, but as Nell said, they just wanted to watch, and that's fair enough.

This is the same class (The Tiny Tappers) when they finally finished their much-started routine. They received an enormous round of applause and were quite delighted.  I think I just look terribly relieved.



This next class (the Junior Shufflers) has become so big that when I choreographed this number I decided to split them into 2 lines; talls at the back and shorties in the front.  One of the tall girls was really desperate to be in the front row and kept asking me to change the arrangement or just sneaking herself forward.  And really, she had a point.  You shouldn't be kept in or out of the limelight owing to genetics beyond your control. Happily, on the morning it occurred to me that I could do a line swap halfway through the song in a little bit of dead music and everyone got a go in the front row.



Cherub's class (the Gliding Groovers) wore white because their Christmas routine was Frosty the Snowman, the Nat King Cole version.  I call them my Broadway Class because they are such exuberant little performers.  This is them doing the laughing bit at the beginning of the track.  They are a crack-up.



And here they are waving cheerfully as they exit stage left.  I think I might always make them wear white, they all looked angelically adorable.



In contrast, Climber's class (the Tapsters) were all dressed in black and they had to work with props for their routine to Yello's Oh Yeah; this is them doing some sunglasses choreography.  They were just too cool for school.



Here is the "Matrix" section of Climber's class's dance.  I just love how low Climber goes in this section, it is of course his favourite bit.



Now here are the 4 posed class photographs, a nice suggestion from Nell.  I nearly forgot to do them each time, but between Nell and Cherub reminding me we got them all done.

Tiny Tappers.

Junior Shufflers.

Gliding Groovers. 

Tapsters.

And finally, here is a sweet sequence from the grand finale group routine.  Each class had a bit to do, starting with the babies.  At the end of each class' section they had to exit the stage to allow the next group to come forward.  Predictably the part most likely to go wrong was getting the youngest group to go off and the next youngest group to start their part.  Fortunately I'd prepped the second-youngests about needing to be able to start this routine without my help as in all likelihood the babies would forget to run off.

Well, things didn't start well when one of the littlies suffered a melt-down. This is him starting to crack it and about to run off although I did think he was very brave to give it a go in the state he was in.



The three little girls carried on without him, all is well.



Whoops, here's their cue to run off.  Off you go, babies, go on!  That way!!



Oh no, she's still standing there and here come the other group who are remembering to start without my help.  Quick!  Come on sweetie, out the way!



(Here's what they all looked like after they ran off, beanbags for a lucky few!)...


It is all fine in the end, and everybody (except one sad boy) comes back on for the final pose. He was all right afterwards though.




Tappy Christmas!