Bunny Briggs

Bunny Briggs, born Bernard Briggs on February 26, 1922, in Harlem, New York, was an American tap dancer whose Broadway career spanned from 1945 to 1989. He died on November 15, 2014. In 2006, Briggs was inducted into the American Tap Dancing Hall of Fame.

Briggs came to tap dancing through early and formative exposure to the art form. Between the ages of three and five, he attended a show at the Lincoln Theater where his aunt Gladys performed in the chorus line and Bill Robinson headlined. Watching Robinson dance left a lasting impression on Briggs, who was struck by Robinson's composure and his habit of performing in a suit rather than the bell hop costumes common among Black performers of the era. Briggs never took formal dance lessons, instead learning by observing and mimicking other performers. By age five, he had danced for Robinson himself, and Robinson immediately invited him to tour, though Briggs's mother declined due to Robinson's reputation as a gambling addict. Around the same ages of four and five, Briggs danced the Shimmy and the Charleston outside a record shop in Harlem, earning as much as fifteen dollars a day from gathered crowds. A manager known as Porkchops discovered him on that street corner, began booking him at casinos for split commission, and eventually the two joined Junie Miller and Paul White to perform as a group called Porkchops, Navy, Rice, and Beans for five or six years in dance halls.

In 1930, Briggs was discovered by Luckey Roberts, who brought him into the Social Entertainers, a Black band that performed for the Vanderbilt Set. Performing for wealthy high-society audiences shaped his distinctive style. Because those audiences found excessive sound unappealing, Briggs developed a delicate, restrained approach to tap that made use of silence as much as sound. He maintained a stiff upper body and kept his weight back while tapping, and he described his own style as improvisational and carefree. His charm, large eyes, and baby face made him a favorite in those circles, and attendees would send chauffeurs to bring him to parties. On one occasion at an Astor Pageant, Fanny Brice sat him on her lap and, upon learning he wanted a bicycle, bought him one the following day. Briggs made his first screen appearance in the 1932 short film Slowpoke.

As a teenager, Briggs became an apprentice of the Whitman Sisters and performed at the Ubangi Club, where he met Louise Crane. Crane arranged for him to appear at Kelly's Stables, and it was during this period that he earned the title Prince Charming of Tap. In the early 1940s, he traveled and performed with big bands led by Earl Hines, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Charley Barnet, and Count Basie. To perform in both Black and white clubs during this era, he wore white makeup and traveled with a mixed-race saxophonist. In the 1950s, he made recurring television appearances, including annual visits to the variety show Toast of the Town, an appearance in a 1950 Universal short with the Benny Carter Orchestra, and a spot on Cavalcade of Bands. During those television appearances he performed his trademarked paddle and roll, a step that many East Coast tap dancers considered unconventional but that Briggs made his own by incorporating pantomime and synchronizing his steps with sixteenth notes.

Throughout the 1960s, Briggs made multiple appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show and became closely associated with Duke Ellington. After the two performed together at the Monterey Jazz Festival, Briggs became known as Duke's Dancer. Ellington wrote Briggs into My People, a pageant created for the Century of Negro Progress Exhibition in 1963. On September 16, 1965, Briggs performed at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, dancing the role of David in David Danced Before the Lord With All His Might alongside the Herman McCoy Singers, Jon Hendricks, and Ellington's band. Ellington described Briggs on that occasion as the most super-leviathonic rhythmaturgically syncopated tapster-magician-ism-ist. Briggs also adapted his tap style during this period by working alongside Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker, adjusting his rhythm and movement to match bebop.

In the 1970s, Briggs appeared on the Johnny Carson Show and in television specials including Apollo Uptown and Monk's Time. In 1979, he was featured in the documentary film No Maps on My Taps. During the 1970s and early 1980s, he performed on tour ships, and in the 1980s he toured Europe with the Hoofers. In 1983, Briggs appeared on Broadway in My One and Only. In May 1985, he performed on the NBC television special Motown Returns to the Apollo. He returned to Broadway in 1989 for the tap revue Black and Blue, in which he performed a tap solo to Duke Ellington's In a Sentimental Mood. That production earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. Also in 1989, Briggs appeared in the Gregory Hines film Tap. During this period he mentored a teenage Savion Glover, who went on to connect tap dancing with hip hop.

Briggs also reflected on his nickname in interviews, explaining simply, "Well, I'm fast." On the subject of his vocation, he recounted that a priest he had once considered following into the clergy told him that God clearly wanted him to be a dancer. In 2002, Oklahoma City University awarded Briggs an honorary Doctorate of Performing Arts in American Dance, recognizing him as one of nine recipients honored as doctorates of tap dance.