About Us

Bert Chan, tap danced from the age of 8 to 18 while growing up in northern California.  Now a 57 year resident of Santa Monica, she continued her tap dancing studies under Danny Daniels and Lynn Fields.  Bert volunteered at the Santa Monica "Y" for 7 years teaching Tap to seniors and in 1994, she opened her studio The Tap Academy and formed her own performing group of senior dancers.

Joseph Narvaez, Director, has appeared in such classics as West Side Story, Hello Dolly and A Chorus Line.  He was a main dancer in The Vernacular - A Tribute to the Veteran Tap Dancers, and A Tribute to Bill Robinson at 20th Century Fox.  Although Tap is his first love, Joseph has worked in Japan as a special guest jazz dance instructor.  While in Japan, he was featured in two stage productions and three television shows.  He has also been a member of Burch Mann's American Folk Ballet for ten years and has traveled with the company as far as Moscow, Leningrad and Riga, Latvia.  Joseph was part of the national tour of Sesame Street Live in which he played the character of Bert.  Most recently, he was hired by Sony and All Nippon Airways to tap in their most recent TV commercials and ad campaigns.  "As director of the Tap Academy, I look forward on a daily basis to be involved with professionals and students alike whose goal is to elevate the art of Tap dancing to the high level that it deserves."