Before Tapping Came Hambone

Today I'm taking myself on an Artist Date.  For those of you normal peeps, there is a little somethin-somethin us creative types love to read called The Artist's Way. It's basically a 12-Step program to proclaim, "My name is Heather and I am an Artist!"

So each day Julia asks that you write three pages of mind vomit immediately upon waking to get those wheels turning.  She also asks that you take your "Artist Child" on a date once a week.  It has to be something that you'll really enjoy, and you must go alone.

Tonight I'm going on what will likely be one of my favorite Artist Dates since 2007.  Tilly and the Wall are playing LA for the first time in years. They are magical for so many reasons, but I love them mostly because they do something truly badass:  their percussion comes from Tap Dancing.  And stomps and other fun things, but, seriously, tap dancing.

I've been a tapper since before I can remember (really, I was dancing at age 4 and don't recall a thing before I turned 5) and today I realized that I didn't know too much about how tap dancing came to be other than from minstrel shows and some Irish stepdancing (remember Riverdance, and Michael Flatley, Lord of the Dance?!)

After doing a bit of googling:  "tap dancing beginnings of" I found a little something called Juba Dance which is also known as Hambone.

Y'all, that's me! 

Heather Anne Moody, initials HAM, college nickname Hambone (thank you Chris Chamblee, Professional Actor) and I've never even realized my namesake is a dance?

Juba originated when American slaves weren't allowed to have drums (out of fear they'd create a secret percussive code) so they worked out some percussion action with own their limbs instead.

Hambone paved the way for one of my greatest joys in life, tapping!

And now to give you an idea of just how amazeballs it can be:

And that, my friends, is Hambone.