MY girlfriend, Sally, tap dances. Her birthday was coming up, so I thought I'd surprise her by learning a little tap dance. Something simple - I was not trying out for the Rockettes, and besides, I had only one week.
New York has lots of great dance studios: Steps, Broadway Dance Center, New Dance Group. The problem with great dance studios, I find, is that they are full of great dancers. Even the beginners' classes are loaded with Equity cards and triple pirouettes. So I decided to save the hit to self-esteem and go the do-it-yourself route. At-home dance instruction has come a long way from the days of cut-out step diagrams or even VHS. DVD brings the instructor right into your living room without the clumsiness and cheesiness of the older tapes.
For order-in New Yorkers there are as many dance instruction titles on the Web as Chinese menus under the door: everything from ballroom to belly, country to krump. Many can be had for less than $15, the price of a single studio lesson. Production values and the quality of instruction vary, so the customer ratings on a site like Amazon.com can be useful. I settled on Marsha Pitt's "Tapology" (DVD, 27 minutes, $24.95), which promised that I would soon tap like a pro.
But can you really learn to dance from a DVD?
Day 1: I clear a little space in the living room and load the DVD into my laptop. "Tapology" starts with an MTV-style introduction, after which Ms. Pitt, dressed in a dark pinstripe suit and a red midriff-baring top, gets down to business.
I learn that there are five basic steps in tap: brush, shuffle, step, hop and leap.
First, Ms. Pitt demonstrates a time step, the rhythmic building block of all tap-dance routines. I'm lost already. She demonstrates it 15 times. I'm still lost. At a dance studio, I would be out the door. But with a simple click of the remote Ms. Pitt is demonstrating the step another 15 times. Another click, another 15. After six times through I manage a shaky time step. Repetition is good. Point: DVD.
I take a breather as "Tapology" launches into a music video, "Peek-a-Boo," featuring Ms. Pitt tapping and singing to her own music and lyrics. "Peek-a-boo, I see you/ watching all the things I do ... It's true-blue, woo-hoo." Marsha, Marsha, Marsha! Point: dance studio.
Day 2: Sleeping on it helped. I've now got the time step down. But is it tap dancing? To be honest, it feels more like hopscotch. We move on to the double time step. The double, I learn, is a brush added to the leap. Ms. Pitt demonstrates, to my utter mystification. On the third time through, my brain shuts off and the rhythm comes naturally, but that quickly passes. I break for a sandwich. I like having my kitchen right next to my dance studio. Point: DVD.
Day 3: It's a hot, muggy day, and I don't feel like getting sweaty. I cancel class. Ms. Pitt doesn't mind a bit. Point: DVD.
Day 4: The day off has done me good. I now have the time step and the double. Time to tackle the triple, which adds a shuffle to the leap. Ms. Pitt demonstrates. Now that looks like tap dancing.
My first attempt is a disaster: shuffles, hops and leaps pop out all over the place. Everything is off. Now I can't even do the single or the double. But that's the beauty of DVD: I can go back, refresh, reconstruct, try it again. At my own pace. Without spectators. Half an hour later, I have the triple. Point: DVD.
Day 5: Ms. Pitt throws in some running flaps, a series of rapid brush steps. Together with my triple time step, I figure I've got a birthday dance. I practice for a half-hour at lunch, then again before bed. The good thing about DVD dance instructors is they're always on call. Point: DVD.
Day 6: It's show time. I invite Sally over for dinner and a "little surprise." After clearing the dishes I light the candle on the key lime pie, then launch into "Happy Birthday" and running flaps. Dancing and singing at the same time is trickier than I thought. By the end, Sally is in stitches.
"Could you even tell what I was doing?" I ask.
"It looked like you were trying to do a time step," she says between squeals of laughter.
Game, set, match: dance studio.