Relative Rhythms | Where Music & Dance Meet Rachel Gain
Sep 30, 2025
In this conversation, Rachel Gain, a tap dancer, flautist, and Yale doctoral student, explores the overlooked world of tap dance in academia. They share their journey from flute to rhythm tap, influenced by jazz and improvisation. Rachel delves into the challenges of music notation for tap, emphasizing its embodied, ethical aspects and the limitations of traditional transcription. They advocate for a holistic approach to notation that respects tap's rich culture and improvisational spirit, highlighting the need for a deeper understanding between dancers and musicians.
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From Syllabus Tap To Rhythm Revelation
- Rachel recounts growing up with syllabus-based British tap that emphasized routine over musicality and improvisation.
- Pandemic exposure to rhythm tap via teachers like Katie Brown transformed her understanding and practice.
Mind-Body Bias In Academia
- Academia often devalues bodily practices due to a Cartesian mind-body split that privileges abstract thought over embodied knowledge.
- This marginalizes dance forms like tap and explains why embodied musical practices remain understudied.
Tap As An Assemblage Instrument
- Rachel frames the tap instrument as an assemblage: shoes, floor, body, environment and cultural enculturation together produce tap's affordances.
- Defining the instrument by what it affords opens richer analysis of style, disability, and performance variation.
