For the last thirty years, Anita Feldman has been experimenting with new tap choreography, and, through choreographing, teaching, and writing, has been encouraging others to do the same. She gained an international reputation as a leading innovator of tap dance beginning in 1983, choreographing pieces in collaboration with new music composers including Lois V Vierk, accordionist Guy Klucevsek, and computer wizard David Behrman. Many of their works incorporated electronics and the patented "Tap Dance Instrument," a wood and brass multi-timbre floor. Alan M. Kriegsman, of the Washington Post, wrote that her work “has given tap a whole new personality, one that has evolved from tap’s glorious past and pays homage to it, but also one that fructifies new possibilities for the art’s future.”
Anita started her tap training at age five in Chicago with tap master Jimmy Paine, and continued classes with him until she graduated from high school. He accompanied his classes with his own bongo playing, which was the beginning of Anita’s love for percussion and live music. She moved to New York City after earning a bachelor’s degree in dance from the University of Illinois. Beginning in the late ‘70s she continued her tap training with many inspiring teachers, including Bob Audy, Mary Jane Brown, and Brenda Bufalino. Before starting Anita Feldman Tap in 1980, Anita performed with Brenda’s first orchestrated tap company. Another of Anita’s major influences was choreography teacher Robert Ellis Dunn, who is attributed with inspiring the Judson Church era of post-modern dance, and who was very supportive of Anita’s first experiments with tap dance.
Anita Feldman Tap, a company of musicians and dancers, appeared at over 100 venues in the U.S., Japan and Germany at universities and festivals in both dance and new music venues. Tap festival appearances included the Colorado Dance Festival, the Boston Dance Umbrella, and Houston’s Great Tap Gathering. The company performed regularly in New York City, including at Dance Theater Workshop, the Whitney Museum, the Village Gate, the Kitchen, and Central Park Summerstage. Additional residencies and appearances included two seasons at the American Dance Festival in Durham North Carolina, Northwestern University, Oberlin College, the Smithsonian, California Institute for the Arts New Music Festival, New Music America in Philadelphia, tours of Japan and Germany, and many radio appearances in the U.S. and Germany.
Her work was supported by numerous grants, including seven consecutive National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, six New York State Council on the Arts Grants, two New York Foundation Fellowships, and several Meet the Composer Grants. Her book Inside Tap: Technique and Improvisation for Today's Tap Dancer is published by Princeton Books. She has also spread the word about modern tap dance through writing many articles for the International Tap Dance Association, and by presenting yearly at the National Dance Education Organization Conferences.
Throughout her performing career, Anita was always devoted to teaching, giving residencies and workshops on tap dance as music. She now is on the full-time dance faculty at Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York, where she has developed a tap program and choreographs modern tap works, as well as teaches kinesiology and dance education courses, and is the designer and the director of Hofstra’s new Bachelor of Science in Dance Education Program.
