Tonight is the final of So You Think You Can Dance, billed as the search for Britain’s favourite dancer.
The contestants aren’t bad I guess but for one of the most amazing dance routines ever filmed take a look at this clip from the finale of the 1943 musical Stormy Weather.
This film featured, among others, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller and Lena Horne, but just wait until 4:46 when Fayard and Harold Nicholas make their appearance.
Neither of the Nicholas brothers had any formal dance training but you can see from this clip why many considered them the greatest tap dancers of the time. Janet and Michael Jackson studied with them and Mikhail Baryshnikov called them the most amazing dancers he had ever seen in his life.
Fred Astaire said this “Jumpin’ Jive” dance number from Stormy Weather was the greatest movie musical sequence he had ever seen.