Dr. Henry LeTang, legendary tap dancer choreographer and instructor passed away, April 26, 2007.
There will be a memorial service:
Monday, April 30, 2007
1:00 pm
Holy Trinity African Methodist Church: 700 Lola Ave, North Las Vegas, NV 89030, US
Holy Trinity AME Church [African Methodist Episcopal ] 702-877-0790
Herehttp://www.mapquest.com/directions/main.adp?bCTsettings=1
is a shortcut to mapquest with the destination of the service entered
Holy Trinity African Methodist:
700 Lola Ave,
North Las Vegas,NV 89030,US
Donations can be sent to: The Tap Legacy Fdn Inc www.taplegacy.org
To advance and preserve the art of Tap dancing.
Henry's choreography credits include tap segments in Broadway Shows: "Eubie!" [which featured the Hines Brothers in their first Broadway Appearance],"SophisticatedLadies," and "Black And Blue" which won the 4-member choreography team of Cholly Atkins, Frankie Manning, Fayard Nicholas and Henry Le Tang the 1989 Oscar for BEST CHOREOGRAPHY . Henry’s work was best appreciated in the large chorus lines].
and Movies"Bojangles" starring Gregory Hines "Cotton Club" starring Gregory Hines and Richard Gere"Tap" starring Gregory Hines and Sammy Davis, Jr., brilliantly beyond its time and worth the price of purchase for the only known existing film sequence featuring legendary tap soloists Jimmy Slyde, Harold Nicholas, Steve Condos, Bunny Briggs, and more doing their own choreography as Henry Le Tang played the piano.
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Henry LeTang
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Henry LeTang (born June 19, 1915) is an American theatre, film, and television choreographer and a dance instructor.Born in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, LeTang was the second son of Clarence, born in Dominica, and his wife Marie, who emigrated from St. Croix. The couple owned and operated a radio and phonograph repair shop. All their children were musically inclined; in addition to his interest in dance, LeTang played the violin. At the age of seventeen, he opened his first studio, one small room with a piano. Over the decades he has taught and/or worked with a multitude of entertainment personalities, including Lena Horne, Betty Hutton, Billie Holiday, Eleanor Powell, Lola Falana, Peter Gennaro, Leslie Uggams, Joey Heatherton, Chita Rivera, Ben Vereen, Debbie Allen, Hinton Battle, Savion Glover, and the Hines brothers, Maurice and Gregory.
LeTang devised dance routines for the Broadway musicals My Dear Public and Dream with Music in the mid-1940s, but his first credit as a full-fledged choreographer was the 1952 revue Shuffle Along with Eubie Blake. Twenty-six years later, he would receive Tony and Drama Desk Award nominations for his work on Eubie!, a song-and-dance tribute to the musician. Additional credits include Sophisticated Ladies (1981), which earned him a second Tony nomination, and Black and Blue (1989), which finally won him the prize.
LeTang's screen credits include Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club (1984) and Tap (1989). For television he choreographed The Garry Moore Show for seven years, staged the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon numerous times, and created dance routines for George Balanchine and Milton Berle. His last project was the Showtime bio-film Bojangles in 2001.
The Oklahoma City University School of American Dance and Arts Management, where he established the tap dance program, presented LeTan with an honorary doctorate in 2003. He currently resides in Las Vegas, teaching master classes from his home studio, and travels several times a year to hold classes in New York City. Widowed in 2002, he has two sons.
