On Saturday, July 10, the U.S. Postal Service is issuing a new series of stamps devoted to the art of tap dancing, and tap dancers will be honoring the occasion by doing some stamping of their own. At 11:30am ET, the dancers will converge in Times Square for Tap It Out, a free outdoor celebration of percussive fancy footwork.
Tap It Out is the concluding event of the 20th annual Tap City Festival, organized by the American Tap Dance Foundation. Usually, the festival includes multiple live performances; this year, it has gone virtual with this important exception. Individual dancers will perform semi-improvisational routines on separate boards, building to unison choreography and the "Shim Sham Shimmy," which has been called "tap dance's national anthem."
The half-hour show won't be quite as showy as the 42nd Street's memorable travel sequence on the Tonys 20 years ago, but it will be great to hear the sound of dancing in the theater district again.
At noon, the performance will be followed by a USPS decication ceremony for the new stamps, which depict prominent contmporary tap artists—Ayodele Casel, Dormeshia, Derick K. Grant, Michela Marino-Lerman and Max Pollak—in pics by Broadway photographer Matthew Murphy. Several of the dancers, as well as Murphy, are expected to be in attendance.
“By featuring photographs of these talented dancers, the U.S. Postal Service intends to honor this important American dance form, and, by extension, all tap dancers, past and present, who have made tap dancing a dynamic art that continues to evolve in response to new cultural influences," the Postal Service says.
USPS tap dance stamp series | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
