The Stage is My Happy Place

Image via Tara Mann

Lots of things make me happy. I enjoy reading, writing, watching movies and TV shows and live theatre, playing piano, singing, playing games, hanging out with my friends, and dozens of other things. But there is one thing that makes me feel more alive, fulfilled, and joyful than anything else: tap dancing.

I discovered tap dancing in 2014 when I was cast in a production of Shrek the Musical at the local theater I had been performing with for years. If you are familiar with it, you know there are tap-dancing rats at the beginning of the second act. When we began rehearsals and the choreographer assessed our tap dancing abilities, I chickened out and said I didn’t want to. Fast forward to the actual performances where it was my job to collect the little rats the tap dancers took off their feet in the middle of the number—watching the tap dance every night, I was hypnotized. I immediately regretted my decision and vowed to learn how to tap dance.

It didn’t take me long to accomplish that goal. I bought tap shoes, took classes, and seized every opportunity to tap dance. After that, if a show I was in had a tap dance number, I was in it. I became known at my high school as the tap dancer, and was predicted in our senior year yearbook to travel the world as “Tara the Tapper.” I continued this passion for tap dancing in college and took classes every semester, even performing a duet with a friend in 2019 and planning a solo in 2020 before the pandemic ruined that plan.

Even performing a regular musical number doesn’t exhilarate me as much as tap dancing does. When I tap dance, I literally can’t keep the smile off my face. I love the feeling of creating music with my feet. I love being able to master complex steps and lose myself in the music. I love the feeling of accomplishment I have after a long practice session.

Tap dancing is something I can’t live without. I feel this call to move, to connect to the music and tell a story with my feet. I am always happier when I am tap dancing, and it’s something I look forward to when things are difficult. Being on stage, performing a tap dance, and seeing the smiles it brings to the audience’s faces—that is my happy place.

If this article didn’t convince you to try tap dancing, I hope it at least made you think of the thing that excites you. I hope everyone has a passion that makes their heart beat faster as tap dancing does for me.