Clatsop Community College
For Immediate Release: April 25, 2006
Contact: Lenore Morrisson, 503.338.2473

CCC’s Arts & Ideas Sets Feet a-Tappin’

Clatsop Community College Arts & Ideas will present the 4th Annual Tap Dance Festival to be held Saturday, May 6 at 7 p.m. at the CCC Performing Arts Center, in celebration of National Dance Week. Jeanne Peterson, owner and director of Maddox Dance Studio, serves as the delegate in Oregon for National Dance Week, and is planning and executing the festival in partnership with Arts & Ideas.

National Dance Week is celebrated all over the country to increase the awareness and importance of dance as one of the integral arts in American society. From the beginning of recorded history, dance has served as a meaningful venue for communication and continues to do so in modern day.

Traditional tap dancers considered themselves “musicians”, creating complex sounds and rhythms to express their mood, the music, and themselves. Tap was passed from dancer to dancer, and as the late Gregory Hines said, “from friend to friend.” They shared their knowledge with each other and danced for the pure joy of it!

The Maddox Dancers, including the Main Street Tappers, Adult Tap Group and guest performers from Hollywood Dance Center in Portland, and the Tapped Out Tappers of Astoria, directed by Debbie Lake, will present tap dancers ranging from vaudeville to Broadway.

A special feature will be an audience participation for all interested in joining the dancers on stage for a quick tap lesson! Ron Smith, Alice Thompson, and Andrea Kaul will teach. The finale will be Leonard Reed’s history-making Shim Sham Shimmy from vaudeville days!

The show is open to the public. Tickets are $8 general; $6 students/seniors; $4 children 12 and under. Tickets are available at the door. The CCC Performing Arts Center is located at 16th & Franklin in Astoria.

For further information, contact Maddox Dance Studio at 861-1971.