Tap shoes rattled and rolled nonstop across the stage. His front and back heels twitched, kicking, sweeping, and tapping the floor. My heart thumped, my beat rate gradually increased. Sweat beaded on the foreheads of the three women as they danced across the stage. When they took a break from the beat, they cheered up by clapping as hard as they could or shouting ‘hey’. The reporter, who was watching her dance with her arms crossed, was surprised to find herself tapping and stamping her feet. Park Ji-hye (33) came off the stage and said with a cool smile. “Tap dancing is the most primitive dance,” she said. It came from the human instinct to stomp in response to rhythm. You can express yourself freely.”
“Let’s show the strength of women only!”
We met tap dancers Park Ji-hye, Son Yun (31), and Kim Kyung-min (34) at the Mapo Art Center in Mapo-gu, Seoul on the 28th and watched the practice stage. They will perform at the opening performance of the 5th Seoul Tap Dance Festival, which will be held at the Mapo Art Center from the 5th to the 9th of next month. <더 셰이프 오브 심벌(The Shape of SYMBOL)>I was in charge of planning, directing, and appearing in. Last winter, while enjoying a daytime drink at a restaurant in Ahyeon-dong Gamjatang, they made a resolution to “make a performance only for women.” In the ‘tap scene’, female tap dancers, who were a minority, often played an auxiliary role to performances led by senior male tap dancers.
Kim Kyung-min and his younger siblings clenched their fists, saying, “Let’s show the strength of women!” “All female tap dancers must have thought of a stage where women stand together. Until now, I have been putting on stages with a composition similar to that of my senior oppas. This time, we want to show our own story and color.”
The three female tap dancers became the main characters of ‘The Shape of Symbol’ themselves. She picked a fedora hat (Kim Kyung-min), a traditional Korean pattern (Park Ji-hye), and a microphone (Son Yoon), each symbol representing herself. The performance consisted of 1 to 3 parts, and he expressed himself through tap dance, running towards his dream despite being frustrated with reality after being born into this world. They dance to jazz, electronic music, Korean traditional music, musical numbers, and classical music. Not only other female tap dancers, but also be-girls, Korean dancers, and waacking dancers perform together. Park Ji-hye said, “I often get asked what kind of music I dance to when I do tap dance. She will show that tap dancing goes well with any kind of music,” she said.
Corona 19 couldn’t stop ‘tapping’
Park Ji-hye is a ‘professional tap dancer’ with 12 years of experience, Son Yoon with 8 years, and Kim Kyung-min with 10 years. Kim Gyeong-min, who lived in Sangju, North Gyeongsang Province, came to Seoul in his third year of high school and fell in love with tap dancing by chance. He immediately went to a tap dance academy while working part-time in Seoul. When he decided to pursue tap dancing as a career, his family strongly opposed it. Ten years after that, his mother closes the resident roller rink, which she had been running ’24/7′, and comes to see her daughter’s performance this time. “Every tap dancer has had a family objection. Wouldn’t it be a parent’s wish to have a stable job that becomes the ‘four major insurance’? I came this far because I asked my parents, ‘Give me 5 years’, ‘Give me 10 years’, ‘Give me a little more’. But when they saw me happy on stage, they said they were very sorry. That feeling of regret became my support.”
The sudden outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 erased all the performance schedules that had filled the calendar. Many tap dancers left the tap scene because they could not bear the hardships of life. Park Ji-hye also got a job as an office worker at a golf equipment company in 2021, but she couldn’t forget tap dancing. To her depression, her hair fell out and her health suffered. When she quit the company and stood on stage again, she felt alive. She said, “Seeing her prepare for the performance, I think her parents felt, ‘This is the right way for her to live.’ She likes her now more than when she was at work.”
Son Yoon has been waiting eagerly for the day to perform, enduring with various part-time jobs for about 3 years. He said, “In the meantime, his friends have supported him a lot. He gave financial help and bought daily necessities,” he said, bringing tears to his eyes. “I really understood because I couldn’t perform. I can’t do without tap dancing, I really like it… . I think I gritted my teeth even more because I thought I wouldn’t be able to start again if I quit.”
Auntie, uncle and grandpa dance too
In the class where they work as tap dance instructors, there are many ‘lady’ students who tap-dance in the morning after washing dishes, and ‘uncle’ students who tap-dance in the evening after work. There is also a ‘Grandfather’ class that Park Ji-hye first met at a village cultural center in 2013 and taught for 10 years. The 79-year-old student, together with Park Ji-hye, will be attending the 8th of next month. <오버텐 탭댄스 콘서트>They are scheduled to appear as a duo between a teacher and a student. “I call him ‘Father’. Even when I got a job at the company and closed classes, my ‘father’ stopped me by saying that I couldn’t stop tap dancing. You say your goal is to tap dance with your granddaughter when you are eighty.”
However, tap dance is still unfamiliar to the public. Other dances can be performed anywhere, but tap suits with studs on the soles and a wooden floor are essential for tap dancing. broadcast program <스트리트 우먼 파이터>As a tap dancer, I felt regret when female dancers were receiving a lot of attention. Son Yoon said, “It is regrettable that tap dance is difficult to direct because of various constraints.”
Kim Kyung-min said, “The charm of tap dance is that you can tell your own story.” “In tap dance, even the most basic steps can express the rhythm inside me. My body feels very happy when I feel that the music, tap, and I have become one. What we really like became a little clearer while preparing for this show.”
