January: Tappy New Year!
Inspiring tap dancers born in January
Although best known for his performance of the wobbly-legged Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz (1939), dancer Ray Bolger (1904-1987), born January 10, was also a well-regarded tap dancer who got his start in the vaudeville circuit and appeared in silent films. His big Broadway break in On Your Toes (1936), choreographed by George Balanchine (1904-1983), propelled him into bigger film roles, often as the comedic dancing sidekick. His comic sensibility also charmed troops in USO shows during WWII, and after the war, he shuttled between performing in Broadway shows and Hollywood musicals.
Ray Bolger
Tap dancer Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards (1976-) was born on January 16 and made her Broadway premiere at the age of 12 in Black and Blue (1989) alongside legendary and emerging tap greats, such as Jimmy Slyde (1927-2008) and Sauvion Glover (1973-) and in Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk (1996). She also appeared in the movies Tap (1989) and Bamboozled (2000) and was featured on a US stamp “Tap Dancers” collection in 2021 as one of five representatives of the tap dance form.
Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards
Born on January 18, dancer and comedian Danny Kaye (1911-1987) starred in musical comedy films in the 1940s-1950s including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) and White Christmas (1954). His career in entertainment began in a dance act on the vaudeville circuit in 1933. His physicality, pantomime, and expressive skills translated well in nightclub acts, where he was discovered by Broadway director Moss Hart, who cast him in Lady in the Dark in 1941. His comic delivery of novelty songs earned him a radio show and he was often engaged to comically conduct orchestras for charitable causes, and most audiences never knew he couldn’t read music.
Danny Kaye
Tap dancer Howard “Sandman” Sims (1917-2003) was born on January 24 and is named for the technique he perfected, dancing on a fine layer of sand. He designed and constructed his sandbox to amplify the sounds and participated in impromptu “challenge dances” on the street to determine the best local dancers. From the mid-1950s to 2000, he worked at the Apollo Theatre as the “executioner,” on Amateur Night, tasked with creatively removing unlucky dancers from the stage to a chorus of boos from the crowd. He was part of the Original Copasetics ensemble honoring Bill “Bojangles” Robinson (1878-1949) and participated in the revival of tap dance during the 1970s and 1980s.
Howard “Sandman” Sims
Florence Mills (1896-1927) was born on January 25 and began performing as a child in a vaudeville act with her sisters, later appearing in the groundbreaking musical Shuffle Along (1921) on Broadway, which launched her career. However, it was Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds in 1926 that established her as an international star. She died suddenly of tuberculosis at the age of 31, shocking the performing community. Her widower, acrobatic dancer Ulysses "Slow Kid" Thompson (1888-1990) was a master of the slow-motion dance and continued performing until 1969.
Florence Mills
Tap dancer Ludie Jones (1916-2018), born on January 28, toured England with Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1934 and formed several dance groups that performed with Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway in the 1940s and she toured with the USO during WWII. She founded a senior tapping group called the Tapping Seniors in the 1980s and was among the “Harlem Renaissance Ladies” in the off-Broadway show about the famous Cotton Club, titled Shades of Harlem (1983) when she was in her mid-70s.
