“Mom, she left her ‘cwap’ shoes.” Isabelle Cannon says “cwap” instead of tap. She’s three.
Jody Feinman is the instructor and former professional dancer who teaches a free, all ages “Tap It Out!” dance class at the Peterborough Community Center on Saturday afternoons.
“It’s really Beverly’s fault,” she said, referring to one of the students in the class, Beverly Nicolo-Stroh.
“Our rec director for New Ipswich was asking what we should do,” said Stroh, who lives in Greenville, “and Jody suggested a class — a free tap class, and I was like, ‘I’m in.’ ”
Ten students showed up to Feinman’s fourth class on Saturday, Nov. 20th, to tap it out. Each student had a wooden board and tap shoes – a few were borrowed, and one student was stocking-clad.
Feinman’s coworker Gunnar Bron, the one with stockings, and Tyler Bellwood, of Manchester and Derry, showed up at the start of the classes four weeks ago.
“Jody is my coworker and I just love tap dancing,” said Bron, who is 22. “[It’s] exercise and a different kind of activity. You never really hear about tap-dancing now days.”
Bellwood, 24, joined the class at his friend Bron’s suggestion and appreciates the coordination skills it takes. “I’m like a bull in a china shop… Parts of it are very challenging,” he said after the class on Saturday. “I think a lot of people here are beginners, so it provides a challenge.”
Other students include a three generation — grandmother, mother and daughter — dancing together, as well as two other mother-daughter duos including Stroh and her daughter. Stroh’s mother and grandmother were dancers and her daughter Evie, 8, dances competitively with The Dance Company in Amherst. “She can’t not dance,” said Stroh. “It’s in her blood.”
“My mom bought me those tap shoes before she died,” Stroh said; she lost her mother to COVID-19 in May last year. “We were in the thick of dance right when we lost mom. I think it helped Evie to have something to hold on to.”
Dancing is in Feinman’s lineage also. “My mom was a Rockette and when I was fleshing out the choreography, I was like, ‘Mom, I think I want to do a line dance and she was like, ‘You can’t do a line dance in a tap class,’ and I was like, ‘Watch me!’ ”
Feinman grew up in New Jersey studying tap and other forms of dance and danced with various companies and competed in the Dance Olympics in the the 1980’s. She played a variety of music during the class, but mostly upbeat hip-hop (Will. I. Am.), a salsa, and ended the class a country line dance.
“I keep the music current and pretty different. I just started talking about this stuff last week,” Feinman said, “where the riff is and the percussive elements.”
The ages in the class range from 70 to the three-year-old Cannon. Her mother, Amanda Cannon, of New Ipswich, said she appreciates the time spent together.
“[Isabelle] loves to dance in general,” said Cannon. “She’s obsessed with David Bowie and that’s where this all started.” Cannon asked Isabelle her favorite thing about the class on Saturday.
Isabelle’s favorite part — again, she is three — “Um … just doing nothing.”
Feinman’s classes run Saturdays at noon through the Peterborough Recreation Department; she also plans to offer a Friday evening tap class in New Ipswich at the Congregational Church starting in January.