Tap Dancing legends Fayard (1914-) and Harold Nicholas (1918-2000) dazzled audiences with some of the most amazing footwork ever performed. Yet, for all their daredevil splits, slides, and hair-raising flips, they were also highly sophisticated dancers, refining a centuries-old tradition of percussive dance into the rhythmic brilliance of jazz tap at its zenith.

Constance Valis Hill draws from a deep well of research to present an engaging portrait of the two dance greats, who worked alongside such luminaries as Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Chick Webb, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Josephine Baker, and George Balanchine. Hill poignantly documents the Nicholas Brothers' struggles with the racism and segregation that obstructed their careers and denied them the recognition that they deserved.

CONSTANCE VALIS HILL is a jazz dancer, choreographer, and a highly respected scholar of performance studies. She has taught at the Alvin Ailey School of American Dance, the Conservatoire d'Arts Dramatique in Paris, and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Her articles and reviews have appeared in such publications as Dance Magazine, The Village Voice, and Dance Research Journal. She is a Five College Associate Professor of Dance at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.

This book was a winner of the 2001 ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award.

With a foreword by Gregory Hines and a new introduction by Jennifer Dunning.

CONTENTS:
Born Into Jazz
Brothers: 1914-1931
Blackbirds in New York: 1932-1934
All-Colored Comedy: 1934-1936
Babes On Broadway: 1936-1938
Class Act And Challenge: 1938-1945
Forties Swing, Hollywood Flash: 1940-1945
Converging Styles: 1942-1945
Swing to Bop: 1945-1958
Nostalgia, And All That Jazz: 1964-1989

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