If you are on the stage and someone is playing a scene, and your head
is going from side to side, you attract the attention of the audience
from the actor to yourself. When you do it here you take the attention
of the class away from me, and you also take my attention away from
the class, and if one or all of you do a "go as you please" about your
movements, your talking and your attitudes in class, we have a
pandemonium here that will drive your teacher frantic and prevent you
from getting the instruction that you are paying for.

In this studio we insist upon and enforce discipline, just as your
stage director will do when you join some company. It is good for you
to get the disciplinary practice now that you must expect to receive
when you pass from here to a regular stage. Those of you who really
mean business and are going to succeed do pay attention to the studio
discipline, always.

[Illustration: NW]

[Illustration: ANN PENNINGTON]

NED WAYBURN'S TAP AND STEP DANCING

SOMETIMES CALLED CLOGGING

[Illustration]

You will remember that in a preceding chapter I said that Tap and Step
dances were those composed chiefly of motions of the feet which
resulted in combinations of various sounds made by different parts of
the foot tapping or beating the floor, these sounds or beats being
called "taps." This type of dancing expresses the American syncopated
rhythms. It was the most popular type of stage dancing about forty
years ago, when it was most beautifully performed by the greatest
American dancing stars like the late George H. Primrose, the famous
American minstrel.

Buck-dancing is done to syncopated rhythms, and you must get the right
accent on those syncopated beats or taps or you cannot get the knack
of doing a buck dance properly. So it is most important that you
practice over and over again the four kinds of "taps" and "hops" which
I shall describe now. First of all, stand in an imaginary circle the
diameter of your feet, with your heels together, your right toe
pointed right oblique and your left toe pointed left oblique, your
weight equally distributed between the two feet, as described in a
previous chapter.

Every dancing step is in counts of eight. Remember that all of your
counts begin with the left foot unless you are instructed to the
contrary. Remember always, when you hop, to land with the knees bent;
otherwise, the landing of the body with stiff legs after the hops will
be a sho