After financial struggles, Knock on Wood Tap Studio takes its next step

There are two styles of tap dancing, Broadway tap and rhythm — or jazz — tap. Knock on Wood teaches only rhythm tap; part of its mission is to preserve the style’s history, which is embodied in the way it is taught. Dance instruction, be it ballet or ballroom, is often rigidly codified in its forms and practice. “Rhythm tap is more passed down by word of mouth and through the foot,” explains ­Swenton-Eppard. “It’s not so regulated.” Nor is the dancing: Toes fire off satisfying snaps like bottle rockets, while heels pound the floor with the reassuring sound of heavy rain on a rooftop. In between are soft shuffles, pauses, breaks — dancers become both musicians and composers.

Wilder, a KOW alumnus, is one of the school’s most popular instructors. An original cast member in Savion Glover’s “Bring in ’Da Noise, Bring in ’Da Funk,” he recently appeared on TV’s “So You Think You Can Dance.” Long and tall, he dances like a very cool daddy longlegs, his feet stepping and spinning into edgy pauses while his arms and torso move with relaxed verve. Wilder credits his success as a performer to his early training at KOW, which emphasized “a strong sense of rhythm and timing, which is essential to the art form itself . . . without [them] you might go about expanding your vocabulary and learning a lot of steps, but never understanding how to take the song you make with your feet on a journey.”

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The impact of jazz on rhythm tap is particularly evident in Wilder’s classes. He improvises a routine for each session, sorting through a series of taps and pauses until he finds a sequence that works. He performs the steps once for the students to watch, then again with a nod for the class to follow. To help the students keep time and keep moving, Wilder calls out beats like Ella Fitzgerald: “Ba dee be dah/ ba dee be dah/ Ba dee be dah BAH!” The idea is that if you can scat out the steps, you can dance them. Classes end with a jam session. Each dancer takes a turn at improvising a solo routine while fellow tappers keep a 4/4 beat in the background. Baakari reminds the dancers to “have conversations . . . trade with each other,” as jazz musicians would.

A tapper ends his improv on a sharp beat and symbolically passes the rhythm — and the lead — to the next dancer.