The Melbourne Age July 24, 2007

Happiness on tap .........

In the first of a series on shared follies and passions, Liz Cincotta ventures beyond the candy pink door of Calamity Jane's Tap Dancing Academy.

FROM an atypical St Kilda street comes the distant sound of steady pounding. The noise - stomp-stomp-chk-chk-thud-stomp-thud - brings visions of Africa's great wildebeest migration; the rumbling sounds of thousands of hooves hitting the savanna plain. But bayside Melbourne is a long way from the Serengeti and daydreams of treeless plains are gone by the time the candy pink doorway comes into view. The sign says Glamour Puss Studios Tap Dancing Academy and Rehearsal Studios. It's a mouthful, so those who know it simply call it Glamour Puss Studios. It's impossible to generalise about who comes here - men, women and children of varying ages, shapes, sizes and abilities all embrace an hour of retro and hip tap dancing.

A children's class is under way. They're all young girls, about half a dozen in total, and they're tapping in choreographed unison to a jazzy version of Old MacDonald Had a Farm. Founder, teacher and Mistress of Glamour, Miss Jane, rewinds the music and they run through it again. The girls are loving it. Their sweet young faces are taut with concentration but they appear to be having a ball.

Young Natalie's quiet confidence is admirable for a girl of nine. Her mum, Jillian Wilson, is here also, waiting for the next tap class. She is part of an advanced class called the Shagadelic Swingers. As 6.30pm draws closer, the troupe file in for their exhaustive session with Miss Jane, swapping runners and winter boots for black tap shoes.

Wilson, in her sixth year at the academy, began tapping to keep fit and happily describes it as a total package. "You get to have a laugh, which is so good for your psyche because life can be a bit stressful. You get the exercise and there's mental stimulation too ... tap is one of those things that you have to actually really think about ... so I find it really stimulating to keep my brain going."

Her eldest daughter Chloe tapped for a few years, too. Her husband Andrew doesn't tap but he will occasionally help out with props, so for the Wilsons, tapping is also a family affair.

Paper lanterns hang from the ceiling; baubles and beads compete with feathers and faux fur. Half an hour in and the Shagadelic Swingers are tapping furiously to the Knack's 1979 hit, My Sharona. They're practising for an end-of-year performance and in between takes discuss costumes and wigs. They will perform, dressed in the style of Marie Antoinette, for an audience of hundreds. "Why can't we just wear lampshades?" one chap asks. He's not joking.

There's shimmying, shoulder shakes, twirling, clapping and a truck-load of stomping. It's loud and infectious.

Debby de Hoogd, or Miss Debby, has been tapping on and off since the age of 10 and comes to Glamour Puss twice a week. While she says most of the group have lives outside of tap, she also acknowledges that sometimes she sees her fellow tappers more than she sees her friends. "It really is light entertainment with an element of seriousness because we all want to perfect the steps and get them right and know the routines and not stuff-up on stage," she says.

But for de Hoogd the real appeal is the music. "It's the music that gets me in, I'm a '70s/'80s girl and we dance to that a lot of the time ... It just makes me feel lovely. I feel happiest when I'm dancing and that still stands as an adult."

Miss Jane continues to shout instructions and bangs her head on a glittery disco ball. "Do-it-again, do-it-again, do-it-again!" she yells, before exploding into laughter. They continue when My Sharona is bluntly interrupted by someone shouting "Ow!". They stood on their own foot.

The studio is in its 10th year and the number of students has grown from 30 to 300. Says Miss Jane, "For us it's really not about how good you are, we don't care. If you want to tap, then happy days."