"Anyone can enjoy being be a tap dancer in their daily life; all you have to do is casually make a rhythm with your feet when you're walking down the street," Japan's leading exponent of the art, Kazunori Kumagai, insists — seemingly oblivious to the gulf between him and most of the rest of clod-hopping humanity.
"I believe if people did it as part of their daily lives for fun, the world would be much happier," the 36-year-old New York resident adds with a laugh.
"Kaz," as his American friends call him, was talking with The Japan Times at a rehearsal studio where the father of a 4-year- old daughter with his wife, pop singer Kahimi Karie, was preparing for an upcoming Tokyo run of his latest program, "Dance to the One," after a yearlong absence from Japan.