Leah Silva's OC Tap Festival Brings Community and Artistry to Orange County Tap Dancers
- Lillian Dunn
- Jul 7
- 10 min read
OC Tap Fest founder organizes a community-oriented tap festival every year. In the festival’s eighth year, Silva emphasizes the importance of tap dance spaces.
The Orange County Tap Festival, celebrating tap dance in Orange County, gives dancers the opportunity to take master classes from critically acclaimed instructors and performers from around the world, connect with other tap dancers, and engage in activities like history lessons and improv contests. Founded and organized by Leah Silva, director of Reverb Tap Company, OC Tap Fest is in its eighth year and runs July 9-13 at the Kimpton Shorebreak Resort in Huntington Beach.
Silva started dancing before she was 3 years old. The way her mother tells it, Silva would get excited from her car seat and point out Impact Dance Center every time they’d drive down Katella Avenue after a day full of errands.
When her mother finally took her inside to inquire about classes, studio founder Nancy Kindorf told her she didn’t have dance classes for 2-year-olds. Fortunately, Kindorf allowed Silva to enroll in her ballet and tap combination class anyway, a common place for young dancers to begin, and tap has been in her life ever since.
In 1999, when Silva was in the sixth grade, she booked her first gig with Southern California native and professional tap dancer, teacher and choreographer Christy Hernandez. (Full disclosure: Hernandez was this writer’s tap teacher for four years, and my mother, Brande Dunn, had a professional relationship with her at Huntington Beach High School’s Academy for the Performing Arts.) Hernandez danced with Linda Sohl Ellison’s Rhapsody in Taps for eight years before creating her own company, Sound Effects, in 1998. Looking for young tap dancers for a performance with the Long Beach Symphony, Hernandez found Silva to be the perfect choice.
Years later, Silva called Hernandez to let her know that she felt called to become a professional tap dancer, and Hernandez said, “Good. Go do it.”
The Beginning of Reverb Tap Company
After having her daughter, Bella Silva, at 22, Leah took about two years off from dance and found herself in a terrible place. When her husband sent her back to dance for her own good, dance not only became a priority in Leah’s life, but also Bella’s. As a current member of Leah’s Reverb Tap Company, who is also heavily involved in the dance community, Bella is proud to be part of a mother-daughter duo that has shaped her life so fully.
“It’s really inspiring having my mom, who’s so dedicated to the art form, and really trailblazing in the tap dance community,” Bella said in an interview. “I really feel like she’s someone I look up to, and I’m able to make my mark in the tap dance community through our journey together.”
Leah founded Reverb as a professional adult company because she wanted to be part of a company ensemble but did not feel like she was welcome in other companies based on her size and looks. She named the company Reverb after the musical term reverberation and as a reflection of the work that the company was doing in hopes of creating a positive impact on surrounding communities.
More and more dancers in the Orange County and Los Angeles communities began asking Leah to join Reverb, so she began hosting the Orange County Tap Experience, modeled after Sarah Reich’s Monday Night Tap Experience in L.A., where Silva would hold classes for dancers who wanted to be considered for Reverb. Silva wanted to train kids with Reverb, instead of adults, including her daughter, the way she thought kids should be taught. She didn’t want Bella participating in competition tap culture; she wanted her daughter to grow up in the kind of environment Hernandez fostered in her classes.
In 2017, when Reverb was shifting gears from being an adult company to a junior company, Leah hosted an OC Tap Experience that she didn’t call an official audition for Reverb Jr. She was scared of a low turnout, but when she turned the corner and the dance studio came into view, there was a horde of people outside and nowhere to park.
“I just remember feeling so much excitement all of a sudden, like I’m doing the right thing, because if I wasn’t supposed to do this, all of these people wouldn’t have shown up,” Silva said.
Photos from previous OC Tap Fest workshops. PHOTO 1: Bella Silva, daughter of Lead Silva dances during a workshop. PHOTO 2: "So You Think You Can Dance" alum Sarah Reich teaching a masterclass session. PHOTO 3: Student dancers during a class. PHOTO 4: Christy Hernandez teaching at a class. Photos courtesy of OC Tap Fest/Bill Simpson and Mike Hagler
The Birth of OC Tap Festival
After taking Linda Sohl-Ellison’s tap class at Orange Coast College, where Sohl-Ellison began teaching in 1978, Silva had the idea of creating the OC Tap Festival. Sohl-Ellison had previously run the Southern California Tap Festival, produced by her company, Rhapsody in Taps, at OCC from 1993 until 1997. Because she hadn’t held a festival in quite some time, Silva thought she might be able to revive it to benefit the Orange County area and went to Hernandez for advice. Having worked with Sohl-Ellison for many years, Hernandez urged Silva to go ahead.
“Would she mind? I think she would think it was a great idea,” Hernandez remembers telling Silva.
The tap community is very small. Everyone seems to know everyone. Many dancers who were in Hernandez’s youth company, Sound Effects, would age out and audition for Sohl-Ellison’s adult company, Rhapsody in Taps. Sohl-Ellison didn’t just run the Southern California Tap Dance Festival; she also hosted National Tap Dance Day, an event Silva attended every year. National Tap Dance Day is where Silva first met world-famous tap dancer, choreographer and composer Reich when they were both pre-teens.
“Sarah always tells the story that until I showed up, there was no one that was young at these classes who was not gunning for her, but someone to be aware of in the room. She was like the young cat that was killing it,” Silva said.
The full OC Tap Fest experience is four days long at a beachfront hotel. Students come from all over the world to take classes from Emmy nominees, Broadway performers and masters of the craft to grow in their own artistic practices. Some of the artists joining OC Tap Fest this coming year include Hernandez, Sohl-Ellison and Reich, alongside Anthony Morigerato, Leo Manzari, Max Pollak, Mary Thomas and Sam Weber.
SIDEBAR: More about OC Tap Fest Teachers
Anthony Morigerato is an Emmy-nominated choreographer, tap dancer, filmmaker, creative director and educator.
Christy Hernandez is a professional tap dancer, choreographer and educator. She is the founder of Dance 4 Joy Ministries. She danced in Rhapsody in Taps for eight years and created her own company, Sound Effects in 1998. She was mentored by Sam Weber, Fred Strickler and Linda Sohl-Ellison, and she was a mentor to Leah Silva.
Leah Silva is a professional dancer, award-winning choreographer, and the founder of OC Tap Festival and Reverb Tap Company. She studied under Christy Hernandez in Sound Effects Tap Company and later under Linda Sohl-Ellison in Rhapsody in Taps.
Leo Manzari is a tap dancer from Washington, D.C., and part of the Manzari Brothers duo. He performed in the Off-Broadway production of “Maurice Hines is Tappin’ Thru Life” and featured as a guest artist on “So You Think You Can Dance.”
Linda Sohl-Ellison is a dancer, choreographer and professor of dance at Orange Coast College. She directs the OCC student dance concert each year, and she was the founder and director of the Southern California Tap Festival and the company Rhapsody in Taps.
Max Pollak is a dancer and choreographer known for mixing Afro-Cuban music and dance with American rhythm tap into something he calls RumbaTap. He originated Cuba’s first tap festival in 2001.
Mary Thomas is a dancer and choreographer who trained with Christy Hernandez, Linda Sohl-Ellison, Leah Silva, Sarah Reich, Aaron Williams and Sam Weber. She is a teacher at Dance 4 Joy Ministries and she was a member of Reverb Tap Company.
Sam Weber is a performing artist and acclaimed teacher who has danced with tap legends like Steve Condos, Jimmy Slyde, Gregory Hines and the Nicolas Brothers. He has performed and taught at tap workshops and festivals around the world, including the Chicago Human Rhythm Project and OC Tap Fest.
Sarah Reich is an acclaimed performer, choreographer, composer and educator. She has appeared on Scott Bradlee’s “Postmodern Jukebox” and “So You Think You Can Dance” under Chloe Arnold and Jason Samuels Smith. She has performed at Madison Square Garden, the Hollywood Bowl and the Greek Theater, and she is the founder of the Tap Music Project. She also put out a tap-jazz fusion album called “New Change.”
PHOTOS 1 & 2: Teachers and students take the stage as attendees enjoy the OC Tap Fest Showcase. PHOTO 3: Steve Zee and Dianne Walker in conversation during a tap talk session. PHOTO 4: Teachers speaking at a OC Tap Fest tap talk session. Photos courtesy of OC Tap Fest/Bill Simpson
In their free time, dancers hang out in an open-air event space with games, take lunch breaks together, grab ice cream on Main Street and have photoshoots on the pier. Elder tap dancers tell stories to younger dancers, who sit around them in beanbag chairs, listening. OC Tap Fest’s opening night party also welcomes people from the swing and Lindy Hop community in Orange County, and there is a free masterclass that covers swing and Lindy Hop basics.
“Every night is dedicated to a different aspect of the dance, but always revolving around joy and unity,” Silva said.
Even faculty play along with the kids – card games, foosball or just basking in the sunlight and conversing with one another.
“The brilliance behind Leah and (her husband), and what they’ve done is they really thought about each individual tap dancer and what their needs are,” Hernandez said. “They’ve created the packages at the different levels in order to really make sure that that tap dancer is served right where they’re at and can grow the most out of working with all the different master teachers.”
The OC Tap Fest experience is not limited to taking classes. The festival also offers panel discussions with faculty, history sessions about the roots of the tap dance art form and an opportunity to perform at an adjudication and receive individual feedback from mentors. There is also an intimate faculty performance on the final day of the festival where dancers are able to sit up close and personal with the master teachers, often accompanied by live music.
“Tap dance in its excellence is focused on togetherness,” Silva said. “That’s when you see people feel their best and leave with their tanks filled, whether they’re students or teachers.”
Dancers who come in from outside of Orange County stay in a hotel near the beach where they spend time after dancing all day. Photos courtesy of OC Tap Fest/Bill Simpson
Impacts on the arts: the risk of losing tap festivals
Silva has fought her whole life for spaces at other people’s tables. When she finally created her own table with Reverb and OC Tap Fest, she opened up a space where she was able to grow a prosperous community experience for many others than herself.
“Reverb exists because of Christy. Reverb exists because of Linda. Reverb exists because of the spaces that I was afforded to be in, because of the people that fought for those spaces to exist,” Silva said. “The fact I’m now constantly in the same predicament where I’m fighting to be able to continue something I know holds such great value, because people leave inspired to do something and create something on their own. That is such an honor, and this is why we need OC Tap Fest to continue.”
Orange County contains many major players in the tap dance community who live, work and teach in Orange County cities, and OC Tap Fest is a necessary community event that allows for the cultivation of the next generation of tap dancers in a positive and encouraging environment.
“The impact on the region is year-round,” Hernandez said. “Those teachers take what they learn, and they go feed their students. If people have to go somewhere else (to access a tap community), there’s just going to be not as much goodness happening right here.”
OC Tap Fest has never been in a position to receive grants, though many tap festivals rely on grants to survive year to year. Properly compensating master teachers and paying for things like a beachfront hotel space, wooden floors and sound systems takes a significant amount of money, and the festival relies 100% on whom Silva calls “angel donors” and the Silva family itself to continue operation. While OC Tap Fest remains stable this year, every year is a struggle.
Other tap festivals around the country have not been so lucky. This year, in the United States, hundreds of NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) grants have been canceled by the Trump Administration, devaluing these groups and putting them at risk for closure. Austin, Texas tap festival, Soul to Sole, run by Tapestry Dance Company, lost its grant money in its 25th year due to lost funding from the NEA. In Chicago, Rhythm World, held by the Chicago Human Rhythm Project, had to shorten its festival from two weeks to one, also due to an NEA Notification of Termination that froze funding for the festival.
Tap dance is thriving in Orange County because of the hard work that it takes to cultivate an international festival at such a high level of performance and artistry. Without OC Tap Fest, there would be a gap in the Orange County tap community that would cause dancers to travel out of their way to other tap experiences or stop attending and supporting tap festivals at all.
“You can get new steps every day. You can get new steps from footage. You can get new steps from YouTube, God forbid. You can get new steps from Zoom, going back to COVID time. You can get new steps and ideas all day, every day,” Silva said. “But can you get to listen into a conversation with Dianne Walker and sit on the floor at her feet, and across from her is Steve Zee, to her left is Sam Weber? That’s the opportunity to connect, and that’s what you leave with – an abundance of overflow in your spirits.”
8th Annual OC Tap Festival
Where: Kimpton Shorebreak Huntington Beach Resort, 500 Pacific Coast Highway, Huntington Beach
When: Residency programs begin July 9. The main festival takes place from July 10-13. Classes begin at 9 a.m. each day. The closing festival concert takes place on July 13.
Cost: Festival passes range from $575–$675, and single-day passes ($110–$220) and individual master classes ($40–$90) are available for purchase online. Standing room festival concert tickets are available for purchase at $25, and general seating is $45.
Information: (714) 861- 4470, octapfestival.com
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