Kat Richter

News: In November, Kat presented "On Taps: The Dancer/Musician Continuum and its Implications for Tap Pedagogy" at the annual Congress on Research and Dance Conference, co-sponsored by the Society for Ethnomusicology and hosted by the University of Pennsylvania.  You can read her report on the conference for the Philadelphia Dance Journal here.

As a trained historian and dance anthropologist, Kat Richter specializes in the research of percussive dance forms, especially tap.  In 2009, she earned Distinction from Roehampton University for her MA dissertation, "Importing Rhythm Tap: The Structure and Significance of the Shim Sham Shimmy at the London Tap Jam."  She plans to begin her PhD in 2013.

Papers and Presenations

• Trading Taps: Spectacle and Meaning in the Percussive Dance Challenge (Society of Dance History Scholars; Surrey University, 2010; proceedings available online)
• Anthropology with an Agenda: Four Forgotten Dance Anthropologists (Research in Dance Education, Vol. 11, Issue 3, 2010; available online)
• Importing Rhythm Tap: The Structure and Significance of the Shim Sham Shimmy (Congress on Research in Dance Special Topics Conference; University of Florida, 2011)
• On Taps: The Dancer/Musician Continuum and It's Implications for Tap Pedagogy (Congress on Research in Dance/Society for Ethnomusicology; to be presented November 2011)
• Importing Rhythm Tap: The Structure and Significance of the Shim Sham Shimmy at the London Tap Jam (MA Dissertation, 2009; Distinction; available online)

Kat's current research interests include:

• The construction of meaning in percussive dance forms
• Dance notation (especially tap notation of the 1930s)
• Improvisation in jazz music and its potential for tap pedagogy
• The integration of structural and ethnographic modes of dance analysis
• Perceived origins and sterotypical representations of flamenco and tap
• The depiction of performing artists in Impressionist art