Our Mantra 

One World
One Love
Work Hard
Play Hard
Love Openly
Celebrate Art
Get To Class
Westie Urban Dance Camp
America’s International Event
A West Coast Swing Experience

Work Hard

We believe that dance class is not about a singular destination. Rather, it in itself, is one of the most cherished parts of being a dancer! Even at the top level of mastery and artistry, dance class is something you love, crave, and cherish! We hire some of the best instructors from all over the world to come and fully engage with students and provide a real education that will inspire you, help you, and guide you. We are one of the few Westie events in the world to offer over 40 classes!  TAP has been the pioneer and continues to be an community leader in offering cross training in solo movement classes. The majority of our classes are WCS, added to that, we offer a rotation of classes in: Jazz, Ballet, Hip-Hop, Contemporary, Yoga, Stretch, House, Line Dancing, Zouk Movement, West Coast Swing Solo Movement, Afro Cuban Movement, and more! Everyone comes to class to learn and be pushed! This is Dance Class, not Dance Perfection. Be humble!

In order to truly facilitate the best environment for teaching and learning our classes are ‘LEVELED’. Although, we have created our own unique way to allow students who might not technically qualify to still “EXPERIENCE” the class. For full details on how we approach leveling classes please read our: TRAINING GUIDE

Play Hard

One of the most amazing, special and revered aspects of WCS is that it truly is a social dance! This beautiful journey we take as dancers has a pay off… we get to use it! We get to use it to create, to express, to connect, to move, to communicate and to experience magic! It’s our belief that this dance has always been about that moment of magic with a stranger or a BFF, you share for sometimes just 20 seconds one the floor, in true improv, in true connection, in true ART! We endeavor to inspire your magic by creating the ultimate vibe… a dimly lit dance floor, with dancers from all over the world, a live instrument playing in tandem with top DJs who are there to take you on a journey! Every Friday & Saturday night we kick off two of the most amazing late-night parties you’ve ever experienced with our 1am TAPthat Parties! In keeping with our mantra of celebrating art. We believe that DJing is truly an art form. We hire the best late night DJs on the planet to come and create art with our dancers. This is an adult party, we assume there will be legal consumption of libations and such, as well as adult language, and event at times adult dancing. We have offered Burlesque classes, and have had some naughty or nice themed Champion J&J Shows.. lap dances were had and given. Our MCs are encouraged to keep TAP light and playful, and have been known to be off color at times. We say this in an effort to have full disclosure and if you or your loved ones are not keen on free flowing creative spaces that allow for adult content, we ask that you prepare yourself accordingly. Our SOLO track series are classes in Jazz, Hip-Hop, Contemporary, Burlesque, House, Ballet, etc.  We know that many of us as Westies do not get the opportunity to experience training as much as we should! Furthermore, going to classes at a Solo dance studio can be intimidating.  We try to facilitate classes that will challenge your body and mind, while creating a safe and loving space to do so! So come sweat, get your butt kicked, and love every minute of it!

Love Openly

We welcome you at TAP with open arms, a warm heart, and non-judgment…with only one caveat: That you do the same to everyone else in our community! If you have a problem with politics, race, sexuality, queerness, straightness, age, size, appearance, skill level, or people different than you, we kindly ask that you do not attend… we’re just not the event for you.  If you can  come with love in your heart, dancing in your bones, and a smile on your face! Take care of each other… Be humble, learn, love, celebrate art, and dance!… then please come help us create an epic weekend!

Celebrate Art

The After Party strives to be a beacon of art in our amazing community. We celebrate the artistic side of this dance, it’s people, it’s music, and it’s space. We believe that dancers, DJs, and musicians are artists. We do our very best to celebrate that. At the core of what has made The After Party what it is today, is the dynamic we create with our Artists (Teachers, DJs, MCs, Judges, Musicians, Performers, etc).  We strive to provide our staff an end-of-the-year party, where they can let their hair down, be themselves, and have fun after the intensity that is The US Open! We do our best to make sure we have enough staff to alleviate a heavy schedule on any one person.  We do our best to make sure everyone’s schedules are put together with an extreme amount of consideration.  In doing so, we hope that EVERYONE at our event feels the love! The After Party endeavors to be the place these artists can come and “Party” with their community. We strive to create an environment where these artists can let their hair down, laugh, move, celebrate, and be with friends. The DJs at TAP are masters of their craft and we treat them as such. They are listed on our schedule anytime they are at the helm… they are consulted on all things music related and are given free reign to play what they artistically choose to. To highlight these artists we’ve created the ultimate showcase, The Champs DJ Battle Strictly Swing! In an effort to let creative juices flow, we don’t restrict our DJs from playing songs with adult language or restrict dancers from dancing in any way, if they want to burlesque dance mid competition…. awesome go for it. These days such a significant portion of new music contains adult language, trying to avoid it, really hinders where a DJ can take a room, so we just roll with it and hope you can too.  Lastly, we strive to offer a platform for all art, we provide musicians, painters,  etc from our community a stage to showcase their art whenever possible. . To support that endeavor, we’ve turned a small ballroom into the TAP Lounge aka The Artist Bazaar @ TAP. The lounge features art from artists within our community, and offers a creative space for music jam sessions. So if you have artistic talents other than dancing, please let us know! We provide musicians, painters,  etc from our community a stage to showcase their art whenever possible.

America’s International Event

Built into our core as traveling professional dancers is a desire to bring to the US the amazing and talented dancers and teachers we meet while traveling and dancing all over the globe. We’ve been the launching pad for many up-and-coming artists that haven’t necessarily had State Side success yet. We’re happy to shine a spotlight on them and it really has become part of our events personality. We strive to bring some of the best instructors to the U.S. from all over the world, whether it’s from down the street in O.C., Russia, Brazil, France, England, Singapore, or Australia. We would like our community to experience a diverse, unique, fun-loving, relaxed, safe, community-focused, environment with people and music from all over the world. To help manifest this mantra, we’ve created a new division called: One World / One Love = No Borders / No Gender.  Come dance any role you like, switch mid dance, stay the same, and get ready to dance to music from all over the world! (We’ll run that division in non pandemic years 🙂

A West Coast Swing Experience

Whether you’re taking classes from the best dancers from Russia, hearing a live viola bellowing from the DJ booth in conjunction with one of the top DJs from France, taking your first ballet class, watching and participating in our live online voting during our Champions DJ Battle Strictly Swing, having the best dance you’ve ever had with a dancer you’ve never met before, taking classes alongside some of the best dancers in the world, being filmed in a music video at the event, or winning an award for taking the most classes, The After Party really is “A West Coast Swing Experience” you’ll never forget!