Patti Weir ended up teaching tap by accident.
The Village of Alhambra resident used to play the piano in a tap-dancing lesson while someone else taught it to her when she was a teenager.
Weir mastered the skills after a few years of playing in the class, so when the instructor had to leave one day, Weir assumed command and began lecturing. The instructor saw her tapping abilities and invited her to join the studio’s advanced tap class.
She also asked Weir to take charge of the class when she was absent.
“That was my start, and of course, she just relied on me from then on to kind of take over the classes when she couldn’t be there,” Weir said.
Weir has taught tap at a number of studios since then. She planned to take a tap class when she went to The Villages but couldn’t find one she liked, so she started her own. She has been coaching tap for almost 20 years in The Villages.
Weir began dancing at the age of six.
“I always liked music,” Weir said. “I played the piano. I played the clarinet, so I was kind of a music buff.”
She had always envisioned herself dancing professionally after graduating from high school, but it never materialized.
“I was not in great demand for Broadway,” Weir said.
She continued to like dancing, so she took classes at local studios for fun and occasionally taught wherever she resided, including in Iowa and Florida.
She enjoyed the fact that tap dancing allowed her to create new steps and that she could collaborate with others, she said.
She was looking for a tap class that was simply focused on tapping and didn’t require any performance skills when she relocated to The Villages.
As a result, she created her own classes. She’s been teaching advanced tap, beginner tap, intermediate tap and tap for men only for the past 20 years. She now offers a beginner plus tap lesson.
Dorothea Robillard, one of her students, recently took over Weir’s tap lesson at the Paradise Regional Recreation Complex.
Robillard, of the Village of Silver Lake, has been attending Weir’s Villages seminars for the past seven years.
Weir, she believes, is a fantastic instructor.
“She is an amazing woman. Amazing,” Robillard said.
Weir enjoys educating others and watching her students grow.
“It kind of gives you the same feeling as watching your kids progress and grow into good people. It’s that same thing,” Weir said. “My students to me feel like my kids. I love each and every one of them, and I love watching them come in and hardly being able to do anything and then all of a sudden are just dancing away like professionals. It’s a great feeling.”