What Do Classic Black Jazz Shoes and Tap Dance Footwear Have in Common?
Tapping To Jazz
Jazz music was, and still is sometimes, used for tap dance numbers, in fact jazz and tap were very closely connected when African American routines were in their heyday during the early 1900’s through to the 1950’s. However jazz dance and it’s respective footwear took a slightly different turn, becoming more of a modern dance that incorporated segments from ballet and other contemporary choreographed styles, and in many cases required a mix of footwear flexibility, the ability to perform a pirouette while still not being ballet, and later being able to add rhythmic movements, and most recently incorporate hip hop street dance styles.
Fred Astaire Tapping
Naturally the footwear once used for jazz, which consisted of basic black tap shoes in rather formal ballroomesque styles, had to change with the needs of the dancers. Dancers required diverse things, from an oxford to a soft flexible leather, or a modern sneaker to a street style high top boot that would be accepted on dance floors. These changes caused a split in the footwear designs. The classic black jazz shoes no longer “needed” to be equipped with taps because they fell under a more specific label of “tap shoes”.
If you close your eyes for a moment and think about what Fred Astaire wore on his feet, you will undoubtedly think of a pair of black tap shoes that looked like fashionable ballroom dance attire. And that is most often what tap dance footwear is about. Tapping. Shoes that are solid, often leather, that hold the foot tight and secure and on the bottom there are taps to click and clack to a rhythm. From flamenco women’s heeled designs to men’s oxfords that look like formalwear – that’s tap, whereas jazz dance footwear has become a whole new bread of flexible, soft, unusual and very dissimilar designs.
Jazz-Tap By Leo’s
Terms like jazz flex and jazz sneaker are now the norm. Companies like Capezio and Bloch are masters at designing affordable tan colored and black jazz footwear for men, women and children. There are however still jazz tap shoes, like the ones made by Leo’s, one particular design is the Giordano that is a leather shoe with a two part sole for flexibility, a heel, a rubber sole and taps.
So, jazz can have an element of tap and vice versa, although there are now many more specific design elements and dance characteristics to take into account when buying the right footwear for the right dance.
By: Nena Argent