*** Dance ***    • Ring Dance/Shout  • Shuckin' & Jivin' (Shuffling)  • Cakewalk   • Tap Dance, Buck-and-Wing  • Black Bottom  • Charleston  • Jitterbug  • Lindy Hop, Swing Dance  • Vogue  • Popping -- key styles: Animation, Boogaloo, Roboting, Tutting, Liquid  • Locking  • Breakdancing   • Line Dancing  • Gangsta Walk/Jooking (Memphis)  • Jit (Detroit)  • Gigging (Oakland)  • Krump  • Beating Feet (Washington DC)  • C-walking  • Modern African American Dance  • various other individual dances and moves     The Encyclopedia Britannica definition for tap dance is: A style of American theatrical dance using precise rhythmical patterns of foot movement and audible foot tapping.  It is derived from the traditional clog dance of northern England, the jigs and reels of Ireland and Scotland,  and  possibly the rhythmic foot stamping of African dances.   Tap dancing is not a Black invention, I think the Encyclopedia Britannica is probably a pretty good source on this. The Irish jig was the forerunner of tap dancing. Possibly...POSSIBLY the foot stamping of African dances, PROBABLY not! :p     Tap dancing as such may have began in the 1830s in the  Five Points  neighborhood of New York City as a fusion of Irish and African  Shuffle . Perhaps the most influential of all was the Irish  jig . Dancers from different immigrant groups would get together to compete and show off their best moves. < Now this I got from the wikipedia and we all know how Afro centric that site can be. It's very plain to see though that tap dancing came from the Irish jigs. Not you African jigs:p They threw that crap in there about african shuffle just because hey..it's the afro centric wikipedia. How many blacks do you really think there were in the five points?? psh. Dream on, tap dancing is not a Black invention.     Line dancing originated in the Old West. Duh. You ever watched a Western movie or what?? You're not fooling anybody, yeah Blacks invented line dancing. sheesh. Noowww swing that partner dosey doh, round and around and around she goes. Now swing your partner round and round up and down and touch the ground yeee haw! hehe you think because they used to have rhyming lyrics like that it must be Black huh? Wrong. :D   