The Nicholas Brothers (Fayard and Harold) were a pair of fantastically talented tap dancers who were underappreciated because, being black, they appeared only in minor films of the 1930s and 1940s starring other black actors. But they were stupendous, highly acrobatic, and, as you’ll see in this performance from the film “Stormy Weather” (1943), could do something that even Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly couldn’t (from Wikipedia):
One of their signature moves was a “no-hands” splits, where they went into the splits and returned to their feet without using their hands. Gregory Hines declared that if their biography was ever filmed, their dance numbers would have to be computer generated because no one could duplicate them. Ballet legend Mikhail Baryshnikov once called them the most amazing dancers he had ever seen in his life.
Fred Astaire once called this performance, a dance to the song Jumpin’ Jive, “the greatest dance number ever filmed.”
If you know the music of this era, you’ll recognize bandleader Cab Calloway talking jive at the beginning.
h/t: Amy
Are you hep to the jive?
Another bit of linguistics from this era — first time I’ve seen “rock” applied to music. And then it seemed to be a derivative of the word “rocket”.
A wonderful time. Wonderful era.
Thank you for sharing this! I think everyone should see it, though perhaps not men who are recovering from delicate surgery. Even though I’m a woman some of those moves make me wince!
+1
Again, once again, thanks, Jerry, for bringing performances like this to our attention.
I probably had seen this Nicholas Brothers performance, in the movie, on television at age 10-19, but only gave it a mild view of interest. Tap dancing was kind of passe in the 1960s, and, IIRC, often a vehicle for parody.
Without the huge amounts of distractions people get nowadays, performers back then (1900-1930s) practiced, practiced, practiced and honed their considerable talent.
Thank Thor that such performances are on film, to be seen (or, “Thank Santa”…he’s the guy with all the gifts!!). I’m at an age (your age) when the marvel of such athleticism can be deeply appreciated.
I read somewhere that this scene was done on one take! They had to have rehearsed this like crazy to do that.
If you’re implying that hard work and dedication are things of the past, I think you’re mistaken. The professional dancers I know (ballet and contemporary) put in long hours in the studio every day perfecting their art. You don’t have to resort to old films to see amazing performances; you can see them live on stage today.
Almost all professional dancers (even ballet and contemporary) also take years and years of tap training.
That’s overstating it, I think. As it happens, I’m on the board of one of the top ballet companies and schools in the country. A few of our dancers have had tap training as kids, but not most of them by any means. And there is no tap instructor on our school faculty. In my experience, tap is not considered a requirement for a successful ballet career.
Some years ago I stumbled on Nina Paley and her work animating the story of Sita using 30’s era jazz singer Annette Handshaw recordings. As Nina explained it, she was “couch hopping” in New York and stumbled on all these old recordings. One inspiration led to another.
An aspect of Annette’s recordings was her signature ending, “That’s all” at the end of her songs.
I became a fan of Handshaw and found that Amazon and other outlets had CD’s.
Anyway, check it out.
Even though the music is credited to Harold “Over the Rainbow” Arlen (of the Caucasian persuasion) Arlen mainly just wrote the title song), there’s actually some original music by Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, and Nat King Cole (and many others) in the score, and Calloway wrote the music in this sequence.
One of 2 major movie musicals of the 40s featuring a mainly African-American cast (the other was “Cabin in the Sky”)- a few somewhat cringeworthy stereotypes here and there, but on the whole very good for its era.
I had forgotten about this number. I discovered it several years ago, when looking for a video of Calloway’s “Jumping Jive” (how awesome is YouTube?). This number is totally insane. As I recall, the Nicholas Brothers get attention in That’s Entertainment.
As a child my parents would take me to sin city Chicago to see Ellington, Basie and others. Some would say that it was no way to raise a child but thank goodness they did it. But alas they fell short in one obligation.
I was never taken to see the great Nicholas Brothers.
I got no argument.
Fantastic! Tnx.
hey, there’s an echo in here:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/astaire-week-begin-the-beguine/#comment-263752
Sorry I missed your other post, the first time ’round. Good one!
Thanks, Jerry, this is amazing!
As mentioned before, my mom was trained as a professional ballerina (before turning to engineering, don’t ask), so I was exposed from an early age on to a surfeit of technical comments on every dance scene ever shown on TV, which I duly tried to ignore and forget. But a few things stuck. So I’m in awe, watching the Nicholas Brothers’ act.
A splendid conclusion to a series of exquisite Astaire treats!
BTW, I remember a simulation of binary asteroid 1999 KW4, composed of two chunks, Alpha and Beta, so close that their motions mutually affected each other’s rotation in a measurable way. They were dancing, there’s no better word for it. The larger chunk, Alpha, was revolving close to the calculated break-up speed: if it spun faster, it would in time disintegrate, shedding material at its equator, or so the simulation went.
Perhaps astronomically savvy WEIT readers could provide other, better examples.
Anyhow, I would suggest naming such a dancing asteroid an Astaireoid.
That was awesome! Thank you.
Fabulous!
I knew a guy in high school who could do splits and stand up from them. He was on our baseball team, and I witnessed him make one of the most amazing plays I’ve ever seen in baseball. He was playing first base, and the ball came to him–just out of reach. He put his foot on the side of the bag, did the splits sideways to catch the ball and just stood right back up, just as the runner got there. It was brilliant.
He was much like Ray Bolger–like he was made of rubber. He could do that thing Ray did in the Wizard of Oz, like he didn’t have ankle bones, sort of walking on the sides of his ankles. That always made me cringe so badly!