Remembering the art and energy of tap dance legend Maurice Hines
Jeffrey Brown :
The art, the energy, the sheer joy of their movement.
Maurice and younger brother Gregory Hines helped revitalize and bring tap back to the forefront of popular culture. They began dancing as young children in Harlem, gained a large following through TV appearances and on stage, and starred in the 1984 Francis Ford Coppola film "Cotton Club." The film was a nod to an earlier part of the tap tradition, including one famed model for the Hines Brothers, the Nicholas Brothers.
Intent on continuing that tradition, Gregory Hines would become a mentor to contemporary tap phenom Savion Glover. And Maurice Hines took that role seriously as well. We met him in 2010, when he was 66 and working with young dancers on a new production of "Sophisticated Ladies," a review based on the life of Duke Ellington, at Washington, D.C.'s Lincoln Theatre.
Two high school brothers, John and Leo Manzari, now well-respected professional tappers in their own right, caught his attention.
What does a good tap dancer have to have?
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