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Samantha Jo

@samithajo

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boston, ma :)
dance captain @subjectmattertap

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To tap fest 2026!

So grateful to have spent two weeks learning from @alli_t and @brilbarrett as well as getting to work with all these amazing dancers! Thank you @alli_t and @julieogkelly for creating this opportunity and organizing such an amazing festival weekend, feeling very inspired 💜

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Join us in Toronto on Saturday at @totapfest! Ticket link in Bio!

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We are headed to Toronto next weekend for @totapfest! Catch the full "With Far Hand" on Saturday night as well as workshops and clinics on Sunday! We're so happy to be sharing the stage with incredible artsists like @brilbarret, @heathercornell and @boysclubtap

Find tickets (including our other upcoming fall dates) at the link in our bio!

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pickles n donuts n friendship oh my!

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🎂 TAP DANCER BIRTHDAYS: February 28

Happy birthday to:

•••••

Tony Award winner Tommy Tune - New York City 🌹

Sam Emmond (@samithajo) - Boston, Massachusetts ⭐️

Taryn Bewley (@tarynbewley) - Conway, Arkansas 🐗 👑

Mrs. Kim Bertrand (@k_bertrand28) - Katy, Texas ✨

Mrs. Tiffany Currie (@tiff_currie) - Massachusetts 💚

[EDIT: HBD to Mariana Mickenhagen (@marianamickenhagen) of Brazil, and to Maya Vinayak (@maya.vinayak) at the @uofsandiego in San Diego, California!]

•••••

🎂 And happy birthday to those born on February 29:

Leila Djalalvandi (@leiladjalalvandi; @designbyleila) - Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 🇻🇳

Chaz Walcott (@dancinchaz) - Cincinnati, Ohio 🐻🐱

Eliah Furlong (@eliahjamesfurlong) - New York City ❤️

Jacquelyn “Jackie” Smith (@jacq.of.spades) - Orlando, Florida ☀️

Anne Bezusenco (@annebezusenco) - Bucharest, Romania 🇷🇴

Valeria Peña de la Canal (@v_a_l_e_l_u_c_h_i_s; @valeria.penadelacanal) - Mexico 🇲🇽

Gaia Tracy Anderson Tammer - New York City 🗽

HBD!

#TapDancerBirthdays #FebruaryTapDancers #tapdance #tapfam #tapfamily

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From NEW ENGLAND,
Subject: Matter (@subjectmattertap)

Subject:Matter is a tap dance company based in Boston, Massachusetts. Since its founding in 2015, the company has created and performed almost 20 different pieces in more than 50 different venues across the East Coast, Midwest, and Canada. The company has been featured at the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Inside/Out Stage at Jacob’s Pillow, Joe’s Pub in New York City with Dance Now, House of Blues Boston, Musikfest in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the Montreal Fringe Festival, Stage 773 in Chicago, Illinois, and with a residency at MASS MoCA and The Yard. Subject:Matter is a staple of Boston’s tap dance community, holding jams and community events for all ages. Working through both the dance and music sides of the tap dance genre, Subject:Matter offers pieces that are suitable for the concert dance stage and a music festival.

Read the individual bios of this trio in the comments. ❤️🤍💙👞🏈

#TapDancersOfTheSuperBowl #SuperBowlLX #NewEnglandPatriots #BostonTapFam #tapdance

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🎂 #SaturdayTapVibes:

Happy birthday, Leon Collins!

He was born Leandre Kollins in Chicago on Feb. 7, 1922, to a father of West Indian descent. He began tap dancing at an early age, but he wanted to be a prizefighter. As a teen, Collins performed with worked with Count Basie’s orchestra, the bands of Erksine Hawkins, Earl Hines, and Tito Puente. By age 17, he relocated to Detroit, where he married blues singer Tina Dixon. The couple moved to NYC where Dixon, who was signed to perform with the Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra, recommended that Collins perform with the orchestra when the opening act called out sick. Impressed by his performance, Lunceford signed Collins to a five-year contract.

Work opportunities dried out when rock and roll became popular and big bands became less in demand. He learned to play the guitar and attended the @berkleecollege in Boston. By the early 60s, he gave up dance entirely and restored cars for 14 years until tap dance began to experience a revival. At the urging of Tina Pratt and Stanley Brown, he came out of retirement to teach. In 1976, he performed with other retired dancers in a tap revival show at Boston’s New England Life Hall, which led to new opportunities. He opened a studio with Boston’s First Lady of Jazz, Mae Arnette. Star Steps Studio, was located in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston.

In 1982, the studio moved to Brookline. Leon and three of his students, Clara Brosnaham “CB” Hetherington, Dianne Walker, and Pamela Raff, opened the Leon Collins Dance Studio Inc. Leon formed a company with his students and Joan Hill (pianist). Leon Collins & Co. performed mainly in New England. He had a few bit parts in movies and is known for his exceptional tap dancing, teaching, his work with jazz and bebop and, in his later years, his work with classical music, including his rendition of “Flight of the Bumblebee”.

A documentary produced by David Wadsworth, Songs Unwritten, was filmed about Collins and released in 1989. This clip is from that documentary.

Collins died of lung cancer on April 16, 1985. He was posthumously inducted into the Tap Dance Hall of Fame in 2007.

#BlackTapDancersMatter #LeonCollins #tapdance #tapmaster

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Boston people! Join us this Saturday in Wayland, MA to hear some of the new music we've been working on and hear about our recent residency at @nextstagearts in Putney,VT! (along with selections from "Songbook" and "With Far Hand")

This tune is "The Outsiders", composed by @gregorygrooverjr

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Oh we doin 2016!?

Well, a major highlight from
10 years ago is when we were
in a Tap & Brass Band based
out of New Orleans, Tap That Brass!

Led by @NoraClark721, featuring
myself (Nico), @StarDixon, @SamithaJo
& @EEbaser on Taps, with a collective of
2nd line musicians. This project was 🔥‼️

The name of the song is
“Eight Bar Day” and you can
find it on YouTube or Vimeo
if you want to see the rest!

For now, enjoy this first half!
Maybe we’ll bring this back one day 🙃

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Happy Monday. This clip from Nicole Messina (@nicoletapz) and her youth tap dance ensemble, @tapimpact, gave me an idea for an informative #MondayDiscussion I think we can all benefit from.

As you all might know, the BS Chorus is one of the most recognizable and most important historical tap pieces of our time. But what many people might NOT know… is the history behind the piece.

I personally do not know its history, nor do I even know how to perform it. But if you do, now’s the time to give us all a much-needed history lesson, and maybe in the process we can probe that history a little deeper?

So… what do YOU know about the history of the BS Chorus? Also, what little-known details about the BS Chorus do you think every tap dancer should know?

#HappyMonday #BSChorus #TapImpact! #NJTapFam #NicoleMessina #HistoricalTapDance #tapdance #tapdancer #tapdancing #taplove #tapfam #tapfamily

Repost from @nicoletapz
My youth tap ensemble, Tap Impact, is committed to preserving the history of tap dance by not only entertaining, but also educating viewers on the history of this black American art form. Please DM me for booking. @tapimpact 🎥 @dretorres14 #tapdance #tapdancing #blackamerican #taphistory #tapdancer #tapdancers

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boston was soooooo ‘09 no regrets 🎀🌈💅

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Starting work on album 3!! Come catch us at @maddrhythms Tap Summit on October 4th in Chicago!

references:
Noname

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