Level 1 Training July 12 - 18, 2021, ONLINE
About the Tap Teacher Training Program
The American Tap Dance Foundation’s innovative Tap Teacher Training Program, based in the Copasetic Canon, provides the essential skills needed to teach rhythm tap. The program is designed for experienced tap dance teachers as well as dancers who wish to become teachers. The Training gives a comprehensive approach to teaching tap technique, repertory, and performance skills, and culminates in a Certificate awarded by the ATDF.
Tap Teacher Training Certificate Program includes:
1-Week Intensive
mentored independent work
tap technique
Copasetic Canon repertory
Bufalino repertory and exercises
Classic repertory and exercises
pedagogy
jazz music concepts
tap composition & improvisation
tap history
And an expert faculty including: Brenda Bufalino, Barbara Duffy, Thelma Goldberg, Susan Hebach, Dexter Jones, Lisa La Touche, Margaret Morrison, Toni Noblett and guest artists.
About the TTT Levels
LEVEL 1 - Foundational concepts of the Copasetic Curriculum for all rhythm tap teaching. Pedagogy for teaching Beginning tap students
LINK TO: ABOUT LEVEL 1
UPPER LEVEL “Rhythm Tap Is Music” - Tap composition and music intensive for teaching and choreographing for all levels
LINK TO: ABOUT RHYTHM TAP IS MUSIC
Pre-Tap and Early Tap Curriculums - Music First Tap Curriculums for ages 3-5
LINK TO: ABOUT PRE-TAP
UPPER LEVEL “Copasetic & Bufalino Canon” - Advanced Beginner rhythm tap repertory and pedagogy
UPPER LEVEL “Composition & Styling” - Intermediate rhythm tap repertory, pedagogy and composition skills
About the Copasetic Canon
The Copasetic Canon is rooted in the tap technique and repertory, the musical and compositional concepts, and the jazz culture passed down to us from the Copasetics, an ensemble of tap soloists of the Golden Age of Tap. The Copasetics were a performance group and social club, formed in memory of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, who coined the phrase “Everything is Copasetic.” This material, combined with the artistic vision and teachings of Brenda Bufalino, has been adapted by Susan Hebach into a clear approach to teaching youth, teen and adult students at the American Tap Dance Center. Under the direction of Margaret Morrison and Hebach, the Copasetic Canon curriculum is now available to teachers who want a technically solid approach to teaching rhythm tap that provides a rich immersion in swing and bebop jazz musicality and a foundation for 21st century tap dance explorations.
The mission of the American Tap Dance Foundation has been intimately tied with the legacy of the Copasetics, starting with Brenda Bufalino’s dance partnership in the 1970s and 80s with Charles “Honi” Coles. Formerly the American Tap Dance Orchestra, the ATDF was founded in 1986 by Bufalino, Coles, and Tony Waag. The ATDO toured internationally until the mid-1990s under the artistic direction of Ms. Bufalino, performing dozens of her contemporary tap works. These dances are now being reconstructed and handed down to a younger generation of dancers enrolled in the ATDF youth and adult education programs. The classic tap repertory learned from the Copasetics has also become a central component of the ATDF youth and adult education curriculum. We trace our approach to performance, music, and the ways we pass on the form, back to both our Artistic Mentor Brenda Bufalino and to these great tap dancers before her.
The ATDF launched the Tap Teacher Training Program based in the Copasetic Canon in 2014 to ensure that this legacy of tap excellence continues onto the 21st century. The ATDF is proud to honor the Copasetics and their contributions, as we look forward to new voices and new grooves that have developed from these influences and beyond.
Co-Directors:
Susan Hebach - shebach@atdf.org
Margaret Morrison - mmorrison@atdf.org
For more information contact: info@atdf.org Or call: 646-230-9564
American Tap Dance Center
American Tap Dance Foundation
154 Christopher Street #2B
New York, NY 10014