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Taptations Keep Feet Moving at Carol Woods

Bearing canes and top hats, six tap dancers clad in black and sky blue penguin-tail suits tapped onto stage and, accompanied by their pianist, sang their introduction song for the first time.

“We’re the Taptations with white hair / We’d rather dance than rock in a rockin’ chair!”

The Carol Woods dance group joined two other local tap groups at the Chapel Hill Senior Center to raise money for the center, and by all accounts, they put on a good show.

“Very original. I loved the music they chose,” said Ruthe Meisel, a volunteer at the senior center. “I’m sorry I can’t be in with them!”

The group, which boasts three great-grandmothers and a former Radio City Music Hall Rockette, call themselves “the Taptations” and have been practicing together weekly since July 2004, when Carol Woods Resident Rosalie Williams produced her musical “Leopards in Leotards.”

Williams asked Alice Mennell, a former Rockette, to teach a dance number for the production.

“I did it without even thinking about what I was saying,” Mennell said with a laugh. She became the Taptations’ instructor and choreographer, while also participating in the group as a performing member.

Mennell began dancing at age four in Beaver Falls, Pa., and performed professionally with “The Kretlow Dancers” for two years after her high school graduation in 1942. With a Broadway performance under her belt, she auditioned for the Radio City Rockettes in 1944, where she danced in at least four shows a day.

Though she says it wasn’t easy – the Radio City Rockettes weren’t unionized at the time – Mennell has no regrets.

“We got very little pay. If I’d have broken a toe or a leg, I would’ve been out,” she reflected. “But I still revere the Rockettes.”

In 1946, a year after marrying her high school boyfriend on her dinner hour, she and her husband moved to the first of 19 Air Force bases they would live on in 20 years. Dancing phased out of her life for more than 50 years.

Despite the time away, Mennell said she settled easily into the role of teacher and dancer again.

“I never, ever, ever thought I’d be dancing again. It just didn’t enter my mind,” Mennell said. “But it was like I hadn’t left.”
The chemistry between the dancers – who come from a wide range of dancing backgrounds – was so successful that they asked Mennell to continue coaching them after Leopards in Leotards ended, and Mennell agreed.

“I find great pleasure in being able to show what I know to somebody else,” she said. “And these girls are very motivated. They’ve really made a great deal of progress.”

All the Taptations are in their eighties except for Elaine Roberts, dubbed “the baby” at age 74, who says she admires the other dancers’ skills.

“I just started dancing a year and a half ago. You have to practice, it’s just like anything else,” Roberts said. “I think to myself, ‘Wow, I hope I’m that good when I turn 80!’”

Consistent with the group’s bright personality, the Taptations undergo costume changes during performances, including a cat outfit, complete with ears and tails, for a number entitled “Alley Cat.” Alice Logan, whom the other members call the unofficial costume designer, said the costumes are a product of clever layering.

“We can’t really say we design it,” Logan said. “But we use a lot of scarves and hats—and plenty of glitter.”

Logan danced years ago with Frances Young in the Carrboro-based tap group the Second Time Arounders, and invited Young, who is not yet a Carol Woods resident, to join the Taptations. Young said she has been dancing since childhood, even teaching in her own studio for a year, and the hobby has brought her joy as well as tangible benefits.

“I just love dancing. That’s all there is to it. There’s no other way to describe it,” Young said. “I give credit to dancing for making me as agile as I am. If you’re 80 and you can do all this stuff, that’s pretty darn good in my book.”

Logan also met Ginger Davis in a dance class in Carrboro, and it was Davis’ longtime friend, the late Durham songwriter Lee Wing, who crafted the name “Taptations” and their signature song by the same name. Davis said she is pleased with the song and regrets that Wing, who died last summer, was unable to see its debut at the senior center.

“Lee was really good with words,” Davis said. “I’m glad to have a remembrance for my friend.”

Jane Berryman, the Taptations’ pianist, said she also admires Wing’s craftsmanship.

“It’s a perfect song. It’s a tune you don’t get tired of, and it has a sense of humor,” she said. “If you’re on stage and you hear the first laugh, you know you’re off and running.”

But the group is more than just entertainment for the dancers. Though they wish they could perform more often – they average two or three performances a year – fun, friendship and good health remains at the heart of the Taptations.

“That’s why you’re retired,” Logan said. “To finally do what you want to do.”

Sally Slack, who regularly plays tennis and rides her bike, said tapping is another enjoyable way to be active.

“If you don’t use it, you lose it!” she exclaimed. “And I don’t go to exercise classes. They bore me to death.”

Mennell said the use of memory is especially helpful for their age group, while Davis highlighted friendship as a primary incentive.

“We have a lot of laughs,” she said.

Roberts seconded Davis’ sentiment. “It encompasses what we are—being part of a group. You develop the bond. And again, we’re doing this for fun. It’s not that it has to be perfect,” she said.

In resounding harmony, the dancers insist they couldn’t ask for a more patient coach, and say they hope to continue dancing, performing and having fun far into the future.

“I do it for the fun of it, the exercise, and just pure pleasure. And friendship,” Young said. “I just hope the Taptations just keep on keepin’ on.”

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