In a working-class city 25 miles north of Seattle, a small network of dance studios is drawing regional attention for an experimental approach to an American art form.
A Regional Scene Finds Its Footing
Everett, Washington—long known for aerospace manufacturing and its deepwater port—would not appear on most lists of American dance capitals. Yet over the past three years, several independent studios here have developed what instructors and students describe as a distinctive regional approach to tap: one that preserves traditional hoofing techniques while incorporating electronic music, pressure-sensitive flooring, and cross-genre collaboration.
The results are modest but measurable. Enrollment at Everett-based tap programs has risen approximately 30% since 2021, according to estimates from three local studios. The Everett Tap Collective, founded in 2019, now draws students from as far as Portland and Vancouver, B.C., for its quarterly intensive workshops. And in November 2023, the collective hosted its first regional jam session, with 40 dancers aged 9 to 70 sharing a single floor at the Schack Art Center.
"We're not trying to replace the history," said Dana Mercer, artistic director of Rhythmic Innovations Dance Academy, a Everett-based studio with 85 students. "We're trying to make sure the next generation can still have that conversation with the floor—but in a language that makes sense to them now."
Where Tradition Meets Experimentation
Mercer and her counterparts describe their approach less as a new genre than as an expanded vocabulary. Classes at Rhythmic Innovations still devote roughly half their time to classic technique—Shim Sham routines, Broadway-style precision work, and improvisation in the jazz tap lineage. The other half goes to experimental choreography: tap set to electronic and hip-hop productions, group pieces structured like contemporary percussion ensembles, and exercises borrowed from body percussion and step-dance traditions.
This hybrid method has attracted students who might otherwise have bypassed tap entirely. Kaela Brooks, 24, started at Rhythmic Innovations in 2022 after training in contemporary and hip-hop.
"I thought tap was all top hats and jazz standards," Brooks said. "The first class I took here, we were working on a piece to a Bonobo track, using the floor as a drum kit. That shifted everything for me."
Brooks now performs with Mercer's junior company and teaches beginner classes two nights a week.
The Technology Question
Several Everett studios have also begun integrating technology into training and performance—though the scale is smaller than some national coverage has suggested.
In September 2023, the Everett Tap Collective installed a $12,000 pressure-sensitive floor system developed by Seattle-based interactive-arts firm Lumen Workshop. The system translates the intensity and placement of a dancer's footfall into real-time lighting and subtle audio modulation, allowing performers to trigger visual and sonic effects as they move. The collective has used the floor in two student showcases and one professional residency to date.
"The floor doesn't replace the dancer's rhythm—it responds to it," said Lumen Workshop founder James Okonkwo, who collaborated with the collective on a 20-minute piece last spring. "The audience can see the impact of every step. For students, it's a tool for understanding weight distribution and timing in a very immediate way."
Augmented reality plays a smaller role. Rhythmic Innovations piloted a $4,000 AR program in 2023 that projects archival footage of historic tap dancers into a studio mirror, allowing students to study phrasing alongside recorded performances by artists including Gregory Hines and Savion Glover. Mercer said the program is currently on hold due to technical limitations and cost, though she hopes to resume it in 2025.
Building Community, Step by Step
The physical infrastructure of Everett's tap scene remains light. There are three studios with dedicated tap programs: Rhythmic Innovations, Everett Tap Collective, and North End Dance Project, a youth-focused school with 60 students. What the city lacks in institutional scale, instructors say, it makes up for in density of collaboration.
Monthly open jams rotate between studios. In January 2024, Mercer and Everett Tap Collective director Priya Shah launched a joint youth ensemble, pooling students from both schools for a single repertory group. The ensemble's debut piece—a 12-minute work combining live flute, tap, and spoken word—premiered at the Everett Performing Arts Center in March.
Shah, who trained at the American Tap Dance Foundation in New York before relocating to Seattle in 2017, said Everett's relative isolation from major dance markets has proved advantageous.
"There's no established hierarchy here, no single conservatory that dominates everything," Shah said. "If you're a teenager with an idea for a piece, you can probably get 20 minutes of stage time somewhere in this city. That doesn't happen in New York or L.A. until you're much further along."
