How To Grow Your Tap Dance Program

Published on August 1st 2018 by Hillary-Marie

Grow your tap program and get your students shuffling with my specific tips and tricks to get both kids and adults excited about their first tap class. 

Getting Kids into Tap (1:40)

Start them young. Combo classes are a beautiful way to introduce dancers to two styles of dance. Kindergarten Pre-Ballet/Tap is extremely popular, but why not mix it up with a Hip-Hop/Tap combo class like we offer at Grooves Unlimited? 

Extend personal invitations to dancers who are already enrolled in other programs at the studio. 

Offer an absolute beginner level class specifically for pre-teens so that they don’t feel awkward in a class with other kids half their age. 

Make tap class a mandatory part of your training program for your pre-professional company or competition team members, explaining all the benefits of this newly required class and all the ways it will strengthen their training.

Use the schedule to your benefit by offering tap classes back-to-back with your most popular classes. This is especially help when you have multiple studios and can run simultaneous classes. 

Getting Adults into Tap (4:10)

Collaborate with a pre-existing dance community, ex: Swing Dancers, Zumba lovers, etc.

Try offering themed classes, like ‘Swingin’ Soft Shoe’ or ‘Rhythm Remix’. Sometimes getting dancers in the door is the hardest part!

Additional Suggestions (5:09)

Make the class accessible by advertising that tap shoes are NOT required for the first class.

Collect old tap shoes and leave them in a bucket at your studio for anyone to try. 

Hire a great teacher who knows what they’re doing, someone who is knowledgeable and passionate about tap dance. Their love for tap dance will be contagious. 

What’s Next? (6:05)

After you’ve built your tap program, you can start thinking bigger and work on building your local tap community with tap jams, guest artists, performances and more. 

Share Your Thoughts (6:17)

I would love for you to tell me about your tap program. What’s working for you? What are you struggling with? How you’ve successfully built up your tap program or things you’ve tried that didn’t work out. Please comment and share your thoughts and I hope you’ll join me for a future episode where I’ll discuss how to build your local tap community after your tap program has taken off. 

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