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." 

Papers and Presentations

• On Taps: The Dancer/Musician Continuum and its Implications for Tap Pedagogy (Paper, Society for Ethnomusicology/Congress on Research in Dance, University of Pennsylvania, 2011)
  
• Incorporating Multiculturalism into Creative Movement Education (Presentation, Settlement Music School, PA, 2011)
  
• Importing Rhythm Tap: Americanizing British Tap with the Shim Sham Shim (Paper, Congress on Research in Dance, Florida State University, FL, 2011)
• 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)

Current Research Interests

• 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