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When I launched my dance academy in March last year, I’ll be honest, I wasn’t completely sure what direction it was going to take me. I wanted to build my business around the barriers I’d faced as a disabled dancer in the industry and make sure that everyone has the chance to dance.
Inclusive Dance
I currently run two inclusive dance sessions on a Wednesday with some incredibly talented disabled dancers. When discussing what our next theme should be, one of my students said they would love to learn tap but they “probably couldn’t do that” because they use a wheelchair. Of course I said I’d find a way around it and my research began. I’ve assisted in many tap sessions before but haven’t been able to do my tap teaching qualification because it would be so difficult to do with my disability. However, when I was trying to learn the steps, I used to go over them with my hands, so I thought – why can’t we just tap with our hands instead?
Making the Tap Gloves
I tested a few ideas such as hitting rings or bracelets off of a hard surface. I also came across an organisation in the US that was helping their students learn to tap with tap gloves and thought I’d give that a try too. I bought a whole range of taps and got creating. After many days of trial tapping, I found that the gloves worked the best so started to make tap gloves for everyone in the class. To make them, you’ll just need a pair of gloves, two toe taps and two heel taps. Using embroidery thread, sew the toe taps over the top of the finger section of the glove and sew your heel taps at your wrist section. And that’s it! It’s so simple but effective.
About Beatz
The inclusive tap class I’m running is called ‘Beatz’ and I’m so excited to start this new venture. The Beatz class involves tapping with the tap gloves but also using your surroundings, like your wheelchair, for example, to make sounds to include in the choreography. I was fortunate to receive a grant from Dance City which enabled me to make up tap gloves for all my students. I’ve also just taken on a new member of staff, Jenny Legg, who has dance credits such as the musical ’42nd Street’, to help me with the classes.
If you’d like to try our new Beatz class, or any of our other classes, you can book spaces at www.bookwhen.com/katestanforth and our waiting list is www.jotform.com/klstanforth/waitinglist.
