Flash of Inspiration; Nursery Rhymes + Tap = Fun!

Several years ago we (one husband, a daughter, and self) had just moved 30 minutes south of Seattle to Gig Harbor; an idyllic fishing village. I was feeling a little out of my element since Gig Harbor is the opposite of an urban jungle. I had been very used to, and might I add, extremely comfortable, being surrounded by concrete. Now all of a sudden there were 120' tall trees! 18 in the front yard alone. Huge yards. No street lighting at night. Remote. I could go on, but, you get the idea. I was a little freaked. Anyway, I thought, (and here's a logical segue way!)"why not go back to tap class." I had enrolled our daughter, who was 5 at the time, at the local dance studio and there was a master tap teacher on staff who was pretty amazing. Watching the adult tap dancers gave me the itch so I went ahead and enrolled. I had tapped in New York and in college, so, I thought, "what the heck, if I don't remember anything or I suck really bad I will just not continue." I dusted off my tap shoes, went to class, and began an incredible journey, that, to this day, I never could have predicted.

One day in class I literally had a voice inside my head that said, " nursery rhymes and tap go together." After an hour of flap ball changes, time steps, and pull backs, I say to Sandy, my teacher, "Listen, I just had an amazing thought; what if we take nursery rhymes and set them to dance? We could shoot it from the waist down so the small child can see tap up close and on their level." She was jazzed to say the least.

After class I told my husband the idea and his response was, "Juleen, you have to do this! It's a no brainer."

In the mean time, we sold one house, fixed up the fixer house, opened a performing arts studio, and lived a very full life. Two years later I finally had a window of opportunity to shoot what had been percolating in my brain which was to rehearse, update, and record 30 nursery rhymes and set them to tap, ballet, and hip hop in a theatrical way! The idea was to introduce the small child to the performing arts through rhyme, rhythm, song, dance, and theatre. The way I decided to go about this was beyond fun and a completely freeing creative process. I will be more specific very soon. In the mean time here are a few pix from shooting our first rhyme; Little Miss Muffet.