King Rastus Brown

During the 1920’s to 1940’s, there was a club emerged named Hoofers Club, which was “an adjunct to the Comedy Club-one of Harlem’s better gambling joints”.(Sterns, 273) In the first few years, anyone could learn and practice various steps in Hoofers Club until King Rastus Brown showed up who marked the Time Steps. Time Steps has a standard structure of an eight-bar tune: six bars of the Time Steps and two-bar improvised solo steps. Time Steps is basic but not simple. Based on that, different tappers can create their own steps within the two-bar improvised solo steps. King was definitely the best hoofer, no doubt, however, he was not good at other fields such as being a comedian.

Bill Robinson

Al Williams described King Brown and Bill Robinson in this way:”when King Rastus was in the back room of the Hoofers Club, Bill Robinson came to shoot pol i the front room”.(Sterns, 180)

Bill Robinson was born in 1878 in Richmond, Virginia. At the age of twelve, he was touring with a show called, The South Before the War. At first, he danced for living in various occasions like restaurants and later work for vaudeville teams. Through years work, he became one of the “few Negro dancers who performed solo on the leading Keith circuit”. With the decline of vaudeville, Bill showed up more on Broadway. Not until 1928, at the age of 50, he became famous on the Broadway. He was hired by the producer as “Extra Attraction” for the show, Blackbirds, in which show he did his “Stair Dance” and cause a huge hit. From then on, his reputation was climbing to the peak. What’s more, many influential magazines such as Times, Herald Tribune, Mirror and News started to report him to push him to a higher position.

In 1930’s, Bill started to develop his career in Hollywood, appearing in 14 films. He was willing to take degrading roles in the movies. He had some characters of an image of a kind servant of a little girl, acted by Shirley Temple. In the movie, The Little Colonel, Bill and  Shirley collaborated Bill’s famous steps, the “Stair Dance” as well. The last movieof Bill Robinson, Stormy Weather in 1943, was produced before he died in 1949.

Bill Robinson had such great contributions to both Broadway tap and Hollywood dancing movie, thus a joint of U.S. declared “National Tap Dance Day” to be May 25, the anniversary of Bill Robinson’s birth.