The Original Copasetics were an ensemble of star

tap dance Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. Two major variations on tap dance exist: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely perfo ...

rs formed in 1949 on the death of

Bill Bojangles Robinson Bill Robinson, nicknamed Bojangles (born Luther Robinson; May 25, 1878 – November 25, 1949), was an American tap dancer, actor, and singer, the best known and the most highly paid African-American entertainer in the United States during the f ...

that helped to revive the art of tap. The first group included composer/arranger

Billy Strayhorn William Thomas Strayhorn (November 29, 1915 – May 31, 1967) was an American jazz composer, pianist, lyricist, and arranger, who collaborated with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington for nearly three decades. His compositions include "Take ...

and the choreographer Cholly Atkins, as well as

Honi Coles Charles “Honi” Coles (April 2, 1911 – November 12, 1992) was an American actor and tap dancer, who was inducted posthumously into the American Tap Dance Hall of Fame in 2003. He had a distinctive personal style that required technical prec ...

Charles “Cookie” Cook Charles “Cookie” Cook (February 11, 1914 – August, 1991) was a tap dancer who performed in the heyday of tap through the 1980s, and was a founding member of the Copasetics. He was the dance partner of Ernest “Brownie” Brown, with whom h ...

and his dance partner

Ernest “Brownie” Brown Ernest "Brownie" Brown (April 25, 1916 – August 21, 2009) was an African American tap dancer and last surviving member of the Original Copasetics. He was the dance partner of Charles "Cookie" Cook, with whom he performed from the days of vaudev ...

.NY Times obituary
by

Jennifer Dunning Jennifer Dunning (born February 4, 1942) is a writer and critic for ''The New York Times'' on the subjects of dance and ballet. She is the author of the 1985 ''But First a School: The First Fifty Years of the School of American Ballet'', the 1996 ...

, August 25, 2009 Other dancers included

Chuck Green Charles Green (November 6, 1919 – March 7, 1997) was an American tap dancer. Green was born in Fitzgerald, Georgia. He would stick bottle caps on his bare feet as a child and tap dance on the sidewalk for money. He won third place in a dance ...

, Jimmy Slyde and Howard “Sandman” Sims. The group took its name from Robinson’s familiar observation that “everything is copasetic” and was honored in the 1989 Broadway revue '' Black and Blue''.

Notes

{{Reflist American tap dancers