With a strong focus on percussion, tap allows dancers to express their musicality by creating rhythms and sounds with their feet. This unique style of dance involves specific and rapid footwork, as the dancer’s foot and shoe acts as a drum. Historically, tap is said to have evolved from a mixture of cultures and peoples dated back to the mid 1600s, specifically African American slaves and Irish indentured servants. Later reaching its peak of popularity in the 1920s-1940s, exceptional dancers such as Fred Astaire and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson emerged from this era. Today, tap dancing remains a celebrated dance style often seen in entertainment and highly acclaimed musical theatre productions, such as on Broadway.