Dein Perry's Tap Dogs

I can understand why Tap Dogs has been travelling the world since 1995: audiences love it. The predictability of regular rhythms plays second fiddle to excitement, surprise, entertainment, and mischievous fun. The company's effortless dancing has a very satisfying precision and syncopation in its rhythms, yet the time signatures are not always readily identifiable even with careful counting, and that makes for extra interest. Add to that the unusual music, including live drumming by two prominent drummers; great lighting; and a set that constantly evolved different surfaces, and it's irresistible entertainment.

Tap Dogs fully embraces tap's sheer exuberance, but interestingly integrates the spirit of its original ocker construction-site settings and an infectious and very Australian larrikinism.  Having seen it, nobody could ever see dance as unmanly.

There was even some audience participation.  I'm not giving away what it was.

Unafraid to take full advantage of a bold mix of structural steel, power tools, and water, the company used its tap rhythms to enrich the modern urban images that its movements imprinted on the retina for hours afterward.  It's a supersonic blast.  Be warned, though: to avoid risking industrial deafness, take earplugs.

John P. Harvey

Image: Richie Miller, in Tap Dogs.  Picture: Ralf Brinkhoff.