I am a Philadelphia tap dancer and an internationally-recognized performing artist, choreographer, master dance educator and community leader.

Dancer

I have been dancing and performing for most of my life. One of my earliest dance memories is performing a tap solo in front of a very large crowd of people at the Robin Hood Dell, around eight years of age! At age sixteen, I joined Philadelphia tap company, Tap Team II, which gave me the opportunity to tour up and down the East Coast and have my first professional job in tap dance, while still in high school. I continue to develop my voice as a solo jazz tap improvisor, alongside an amazing roster of Philly jazz musicians, who have collaborated with me on formal concerts, hangs, jams, festivals, club dates and fun, wild experimental pieces. That running list of musicians can be found here.

Creator

I choreograph, compose and arrange award-winning work that has been commissioned by numerous cultural institutions and has fostered deep and lasting connections between tap dancers and jazz musicians. My piece, “Terry Pollard: A Jazz Epistolary,” was the 2023 Overall “Fringie” Award winner, given by the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. I have been commissioned by the Fairmount Waterworks, the Philadelphia Jazz Project, Creative Philadelphia, and PhillyCAM and my work has been presented by Jazz Bridge, Dixon Place, The Outlet Dance Project, Solar Myth, ArtYard, Symphony Space, the Barnes Foundation, Allentown Art Museum and the Cannonball Festival. My work was also featured on a nationally-syndicated episode of Articulate. I have received grant funding from New Music USA (2022-2023), the Philadelphia Cultural Fund (2016-2024), the Connelly Foundation (2023-2024), Dolfinger-McMahon (2023), and the PA Council on the Arts (2016-2019).

I have a keen interest in writing ‘jazz stories’ that fuse tap dance, music, text, transformative grooves and historical contexts, all while providing accessible and inclusive environments for the work.

“She steps beyond tap’s obvious role as an entertainment practice and exposes its deep spiritual elements, which are rarely explored before audiences.” —(the late) Homer Jackson, Philadelphia Jazz Project

“Terry Pollard was a joyous and captivating performance” —Office of Arts, Culture and Creative Economy, City of Philadelphia

“Hetherington changed the vibrational dynamics of the space in profound and impactful ways—a tapestry in motion, where the movement and the exhibits merged inviting the audience into the depths of swimming, dance, large-scale architectural projections, mythological poetry, and the African American experience of water.” —Victoria Prizzia, Habitheque

Educator

In 1997, at the age of seventeen, I began student teaching under the tutelage of legendary Philadelphia dance teacher, Rita Rue. I was lucky to be in the room with a slate of incredible dance teachers throughout my youth, including the late Stephan Love, who remains my primary influence on how and why I teach today. My 27 years of cumulative work as a master dance educator in countless learning environments is now focused on directing Philadelphia Youth Tap, a training and performance program which sustains the legacy of Philadelphia tap dance. For ten years, I was the trailblazing director of North Philadelphia’s Sound Space Performing Arts, the only urban dance conservatory of its kind in the city, with a principal focus on preserving and advancing percussive dance. It housed a children's program, an adult program, an artist residency program, and hosted performances, jams, master classes, community events and sliding-scale arts offerings in 19121. My work at Sound Space was covered many times by Good Day Philadelphia, WHYY, WRTI, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Magazine, NBC 10/Philly Live ), 6ABC Action News, and Dance Teacher Magazine. Radical community access to arts education and performance was and continues to be an important part of my educational practice. In recognition of my efforts to transform the arts landscape in Philly’s Brewerytown neighborhood, I received a commendation from the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives in 2019. I am one of four Teaching Fellows at the Jacob’s Pillow Curriculum in Motion Institute, through which I conceptualize and lead forward-thinking dance education initiatives for school-aged children in the Berkshires.

“Pam is a skilled teacher who has clearly dedicated her life's work to sharing the joy of tap. She has a deep knowledge and respect for its history and her own teachers while continuing to explore and innovate as a teacher, performer, and choreographer in this living art form.” - Private student

“Pam is a gifted teacher, full of technique, history and love for a beautiful art form. She meets dancers where they are and figures out how to help them on their tap journey. Pam has created a wonderful community for tap dancers of all ages and all abilities. Time on the boards with Pam is time well spent.” - Adult workshop student

Leader

I foster and sustain the vital connection between tap dance and jazz music in Philadelphia and I remove barriers to the public's access of tap dance as a improvisational jazz form. My tap community leadership work began in April of 2008, when, by default, I became one of the people who planned events for the Philly tap scene. I produced countless gatherings, jams, workshops, residencies, commissions and low-stakes performance series. A tap and jazz music series I created called “Tap Teaser” ran for five years and gave a platform to hundreds of tap dancers, and from that, I created a community grassroots organization that brought Roxane Butterfly, Dorothy Wasserman, Max Pollak, Jane Goldberg, Dormeshia, Heather Cornell, and Ray Hesselink to Philly. Increasingly large National Tap Dance Day celebrations happened around the city from 2016-2019. I took over the Singing Fountain, the Headhouse Shambles, City Hall Courtyard, and West Girard Avenue with tap dance and jazz music. When things were cancelled in 2020, I received a storefront improvement grant to paint a community mural at 2511 West Girard Avenue. I produced the Brewerytown Tap Dance Festival in November of 2023, which was a three-day Philadelphia tap dance and jazz music celebration that presented Germaine Ingram and Diane Monroe as the headlining performers at Solar Myth.

How Did You Get Into Tap Dance?

… is a question I have fielded throughout my life, and how I went from a child shuffling in an around-the-way Northeast Philly dance studio to making it my life’s work is a decades-long journey of pure devotion. I grew up in Rhawnhurst, a fourth-generation Philadelphian. My fascination with dance and tap dance was identified at an early age. Starting at age 7, I was performing all over the city with small bands of similarly ambitious children, organized by the Department of Recreation, and then, the Police Athletic League Traveling Talent Troupe, which led me to the Next Generation Dance Theater, (Stephan Love), the Philadelphia Civic Ballet, (Alicia Craig), and tap teachers Rita Rue and Robert F. Burden, Jr. In 1996, at age 16, I was invited to join Philadelphia tap company Tap Team Two, and I toured with the company until 2012. In 2010, I met Heather Cornell at her final New York workshop. That turned out to be a seminal experience which changed my entire definition of tap dance and has since fueled my 15 year journey into improvisation, composing, arranging, ideation and solo musicianship. It is a credit to all of my teachers, alive and ascended, who gifted me freely with shining examples of what it means to live one’s purpose, in service to one’s art.

Writer

Growing up in an immigrant family where education was paramount, lucky for me, I enjoyed reading and writing as a kid and still do! I earned my B.A. with Honors in English from the University of Pennsylvania and my M.A. in English from the University of Virginia. I am a published jazz composer in the Philadelphia Real Book, (Temple University Press, 2022), I sometimes contribute to the Broad Street Review, and I am working on a non-fiction book.

Human

I am a proud mom of three shining stars, Violet, Callie Joy and Dale, Jr. I love cooking, walking in my “backyard,” (Tookany Creek), and spoiling my two pit bulls, Moo and Tina Turner.