History

Dragon

Men on Tap is a Philadelphia based social group of people gathered around the interest of Tap Dancing. We were formed in 1990 as a spin-off of Spruce Street Singers, a gay men's choral group. In the beginning we performed one tap dance number at each Spruce Street Singers concert. We quickly became know for presenting the ‘show stopper piece’ of the concerts and gathered our own following. We grew in the next ten years to accept members that were not members of the coral group and began performing for other charities in the greater Philadelphia area.

In June of 2005, the Spruce Street singers became the Philadelphia Voices of Pride (PVOP) and began accepting all members of the LGTBQ community to form Philadelphia’s first mixed voice LGTB chorus. With our sister group’s new structure and new name, Men on Tap actively accepted membership from all people. (Truth was that our female choreographer had already performed as a dancer in past performances of the group.) The idea of a name change was presented to all members, old and new, men and women, straight and gay, and it was decided that a better name could not be found and the name we had worked going forward; certainly better than Humen on Tap, our best alternative. (It was also rumored that the name still worked because the two members defining themselves as female, were both more butch than any of the men in the group anyway.)

We continue to meet on Monday nights to rehearse for less than two hours, and socialize as a chosen family. We no longer perform for each PVOP concert but are thrilled to participate with them when invited. We work regularly with UCTT and are always seeking out occasions to perform for other charities. Although we entertain the idea of creating a concert of our own, that project is still a work in progress. Only time will tell if we will ever reach that level. But we are more about the trip than the destination.

We performed in Sao Paulo, Brazil for Carnival in February of 2016. We were four of a invited group of 13 dancers from the Philadelphia area. Still, the Weather Gurls made a command performance for our Brazil hosts and fellow cast. Thus we claim our international debut!

You can reach us at 888-505-7464, or at info@MenOnTap.org.