Foot music: Tap dancing enjoys resurgence Knox student wants to spread the word

From the Register-Mail:

He’s a 6-foot something Knox College sophomore with a goofy grin who plays soccer, is in a fraternity and is 20 years old. If there’s one thing you wouldn’t expect Oliver Horton to do, it’s probably tap dance. But tap dance he does.

“I got started because I saw Billy Elliot,” Horton said. “I bugged my mom for like three years about getting lessons.”

He started tapping at age 12, and was taught by a former Broadway star. From there, his love for tapping bloomed.

“I saw every performance I could involving tap dancing after that,” he said. These days, Horton practices on his own and performs with a Knox College band, sometimes providing the band’s percussion by playing off a drummer’s beats.

“Starting the tap band was sweet,” he said. “I’d never tapped with instruments before.”

Knox has a big dance scene — the Terpsichore Dance Collective, or TERP for short, draws huge crowds to its show every term — but there are few other tap dancers on campus. In Galesburg, however, there is a lot of interest in tap.