Tap Factory combines urban percussion, macho tap dancing and athleticism to deliver a show-stopping sensation of a production in the genre of Tap Dogs, Stomp! and Blue Man Group. This dynamic work comes to the UK direct from sell out tours in Europe and South America and will be tapping its way around the region this April.
A tremendously visual and aurally exciting show, Tap Factory features the world’s best tap dancers and international musicians as they effortlessly blend dance genres, percussion, comedy, and aerial acrobatics in a show which is sure to set pulses racing. Get ready for a show that utilizes four pairs of tap shoes, 12 oil barrels, one stepladder, four trash bins, one bucket, one toolbox, two brooms, 12 cans, wooden mallets and eight handsome men!
Lee Meadows and Michael Newman are the only British cast members and, at a recent promotional event in Tunbridge Wells, I got to chat to Lee to ask him about the show and the shoes!
Lee, your display was amazing. How do you make it look so easy?
We pretend…no, actually, we practice a lot. The good thing is that although it is hard work, we enjoy it as well. We’re so lucky to work in an area that is so much fun for us. It’s hard work for the first five minutes but, once the adrenaline gets going then it’s all go from there. So we’re lucky because we get to work and play at the same time.
The show is called Tap Factory, but it’s not all tap dancing is it?
Oh no, it’s not actually. Tap Factory is a show that is by, and for, all sorts of people. We have four tappers that are in the show, and we also have a guy who does a sand dance, so he doesn’t have tap shoes at all. Then we have 12 big oil barrels that our musicians use as percussion and then we also have a guy, called Maciej, who is a gymnast and he does a lot of aerial work, together with some slower, strength moves on the stage.
We also have a guy called Jorffy who does some African dance numbers and Andrea, who is really into parcours and capoeira and all of that can be separate or all going on at the same time so there are distinct parts but also a great fusion in the show.
Is there a music score, or is it all down to the rhythms you create?
Good question. We only actually have one number in the show that has music, and that’s a swing number. The rest of the show is percussion based and we also have a drummer called Karim and he works, for most of the show, on a drum kit at the back of the stage holding the whole show together.
It sounds like Tap Factory is a mixture of a few shows that we may have heard of before.
Yes, it’s several different genres fused together. I enjoy tapping, and making a lot of noise, some of the others like flipping about and we have loads of fun mixing all of the parts of the show together and that is what helps us attract such a diverse audience from young to old and, what we have found is, a lot of people come to the show expecting one thing and they take away so many other things that they weren’t expecting.
As one of the tappers in the show, talk me through your shoes.
Well, you have one large toe tap at the front and one large heel tap on the back of the shoe and the rest of the shoe in between is just leather. The blocks have three screws on each one and, at the moment, mine are done up quite tight because we have been performing on a wooden stage but if we were to tap on a different surface, say a stone floor like this one, then I would probably loosen the screws a bit so that they have a bit more movement and that creates a completely different sound.
Most of the tapping is done using the centre of the block, you can see where it is worn most, but if you hit the shoe on the edge you get more of a “knock” than a “tap” and what we love to do is to play with the different rhythms and the different sounds or we might play with the looseness of the tap block too.
How long does a pair of tap shoes last?
In a show like this, the most we can hope for is a couple of months, but if I use them for practice and rehearsals as well then probably a great deal less. The thing is that you can spend an awful lot of money to get the top of the range shoe which could be of a better quality. These are mid range shoes, they are very comfortable and they have a relatively good life span whereas, if you go for a cheaper shoe – well, you get what you pay for, so I think it’s worth investing in something of a better quality.
Once you find a good pair, do you stick to that brand?
I do, yes. You see, with a tap shoe, you also have something called the “build up”, between the inside of the shoe and the sole, and on different brands of tap shoe this can be thinner or thicker. Once your “muscle memory” gets used to making that movement with the foot, your leg gets used to knowing how high off the stage your foot needs to be to make the hit so, if you change the thickness of the shoe, you have to retrain your muscles completely.
I guess it must be quite easy to lose your balance when tapping?
Oh goodness, yes, you can be tapping on the spot where the main stress is in the quads and the thighs so when you start to move around the stage, and we do have some very complicated choreography by Vincent Pausanias in the show, it can be all too easy to over balance.
Can we expect any comedy in the show?
You can, yes. There is quite a lot of slapstick physical comedy in the production. You see we have a guy called Jérémie in the show and he is quite a bit smaller than the rest of us so we do have a joke that runs through the whole production to do with him and his size.
Tap Factory appears at the Assembly Hall Theatre, Tunbridge Wells on Wednesday 6th April at 7:30pm and then at The Hawth Crawley on Tuesday 26th April at 7.30pm, with tickets available from The Assembly Hall Theatre box office on 01892 530613 and The Hawth box office on 01293 553636 and online at www.assemblyhalltheatre.co.uk or www.hawth.co.uk.