Will these Hong Kong-invented electronic tap shoes create a new dance genre?

Step Out Studios will debut its new electronic tap dance shoes in an ‘emotional’ production at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre in November

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Hong Kong-based Step Out Studios’ dance theatre production The Next Movement showcases its new electronic tap shoes that have the potential to create a new dance genre. Photo: Step Out Studios

Published: 7:15am, 17 Nov 2025Updated: 12:44pm, 17 Nov 2025

Tap dancing is set for a technological leap thanks to a Hong Kong studio that will debut its electronic tap shoes in a dance drama at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre later this month.

The concept for the shoes, designed by Step Out Studios, was born during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the studio faced a pressing issue: how to practise tap, a notoriously loud dance form, at home without disturbing neighbours. They wondered whether they could make a pair of quieter shoes that could connect to an app or earphones and recreate tap sounds that could be manipulated and personalised.

With the help of sound artist and musical instrument inventor Ng Chak-lam, the shoes were completed in just under two years, according to the studio founders and choreographers Zoe Chan and Cal Tang, the latter better known as CAL.

The shoes feature up to 14 sensors per pair. When these sensors strike the ground, they dispatch a signal to an interface, which activates a preprogrammed sound. The audio can be projected directly or routed through a computer before being amplified.

The electronic tap dancing shoes feature seven sensors underneath each shoe. Photo: courtesy of Step Out Studios

Tang reveals that the idea was also inspired by the 1989 movie Tap, starring dance legend Gregory Hines, specifically the final scene in which he appears to wear electronic tap shoes that make synthesiser sounds.

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