When pop singers go on tour they often perform songs from their recent albums. But dancers?

Sarah Reich is a groundbreaking tap dancer whose accomplishments include the unique album “New Change,” which was released in 2018.

“I co-wrote it with musicians to showcase that tap dance is music,” Reich says. She’s been seen on “So You Think You Can Dance” and was featured on PostModern Jukebox’s world tour. Now she’s bringing “New Change” to Western Pennsylvania with some extra numbers and a six-piece band.

Reich will be presented by Pittsburgh Dance Council for four performances Jan. 16 to 18 at Pittsburgh’s Greer Cabaret Theater.

Tap is a language for Reich.

“Though drummers play rhythms and percussionists play rhythms, we almost have our own dialect of rhythm,” she says. “It’s all similar delivering a message in time and grove. We can tap in odd meters. We can tap to jazz, to Latin, to hip-hop. You name it, we can do it. We have our own lingo, developed over 100 years of tradition.”

Reich will perform a few jazz standards in addition to her original material. She’ll do “Billy’s Bounce” by Charlie Parker, the legendary jazz saxophonist whose music has so much rhythmic personality she feels it’s akin to tap dance.

The program also will include Cole Porter’s “So In Love” from “Kiss Me, Kate.”

“It’s a gorgeous love song I’ve been dancing to a lot lately,” she says. “Tap can be emotional and I want the audience to have the experience of feeling and sharing energy with the tap performer.”

Reich, 30, was born in Los Angeles, which is still her home. Although her parents weren’t in show business, she studied piano, drums and dance as a girl. She found her life’s path when she switched dance teachers to one who taught tap dance by scat rather than counting. She believes teaching is important and devotes herself to it. She’s even bringing one of her star students for the Pittsburgh shows.

The language of tap dance isn’t limited to the rhythms, per se.

“We can do many things, more than just heel and toe. We tap with the tip, the front edge of the shoe, or with the ball of the foot or the outer sides. We can drop the heel or dig it into the floor, or stamp down the whole foot. Each has its own tone, just as a drum set has snare, crash cymbals and bass drum. We have all of that in our shoes.”

Sometimes Reich will tap dance in high heels.

“It has a different tone than flat tap shoes,” she says. “It’s also different, bodywise. You have to consider so many things. You’re more lifted in high heels, more feminine. You have to be mindful of leg placement because you need a whole different technique when you’re two inches up.”

Reich emphasizes that tap dance is a hand-me-down art form, passed from dancer to dancer. It’s not even as well documented as ballet.

“I think it’s important keep the integrity of this art form alive,” she says. “We’re sharing a culture. This is tribal experience. It’s almost religious. It’s so beautiful.”

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