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    Feel the Floor

    Restoring the Life and Legacy of Jazz Choreographer Buddy Bradley

    Author Maureen Footer
    Narrator Kevin Free
    Audiobook Download
    Beacon Press | Beacon Press Audio
    On sale May 12, 2026 | 11 Hours and 7 Minutes | 9780807023334
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    A stunning resurrection of the visionary choreographer Buddy Bradley whose contributions to rhythm tap and jazz dance in the 1920s and ’30s indelibly transformed the way we move to music

    In Feel the Floor, Maureen Footer shows how Bradley’s revolutionary moves electrified Broadway in the 1920s and conquered London’s West End in the 1930s, introducing new inflections to the era’s tap and jazz dance.

    His experiments in rhythm and staging would anticipate bebop, and his influence even permeated classical dance, cross-pollinating with ballet choreographers like Frederick Ashton and George Balanchine.

    Mirroring today’s fight for recognition of Black contributors to transatlantic culture, Buddy Bradley’s story isn’t just one of influence. He created the movement language we still speak today.

    The white performers Bradley taught to move became legends: Eleanor Powell, Ruby Keeler, Adele Astaire, Jessie Matthews. Bradley was also the first to fuse movement, character, and narrative in the theater, setting the stage for the integrated book musical and the careers of Agnes de Mille, Bob Fosse, and Jerome Robbins.

    In post-war Great Britain, as Black American dancers and jazz musicians flocked to London (and a congenial base at Bradley’s dance school), he danced and choreographed with Baby Laurence, Pete Nugent, Frankie Manning, and Mabel Lee, among others.

    Footer spent five years in prodigious research, crossing two continents, tracking ancestral history in the Deep South, and enlisting private investigators to uncover Bradley’s buried legacy.

    Feel the Floor corrects the false narratives that have erased Bradley’s influence, revealing how one man’s genius transformed musical theater, shaped modern ballet, and rewired the very DNA of American dance.
    “An excellent and overdue portrayal of a backstage trailblazer, showing Bradley’s hard work, dedication, and sacrifice to make a life doing what he loved.”
    —Library Journal

    “Descended from free, landowning Southern Blacks, Buddy Bradley claimed his territory as an innovative jazz tap dancer and choreographer. He began in Harlem Renaissance New York, then, when segregation dwarfed his ambitions, he moved to London. There, artists and audiences were eager to see a multilingual choreography, which joined jazz tap to ballet and musical theater. His work was brilliant and wide ranging. So is Maureen Footer’s biography. With historical rigor and narrative elegance, she restores the life and art of an American dance genius.”
    —Margo Jefferson, author of Negroland

    “Feel the Floor tells the rich, layered story of choreographer Buddy Bradley and his journey from Alabama to Harlem and on to London’s West End. Maureen Footer weaves a compelling tale, showing how Buddy Bradley’s influence on dance on both stage and screen spread across the Atlantic and brought the dance culture of the Black American South to the world.”
    —W. Ralph Eubanks, author of When It’s Darkness on the Delta

    “Finally! A meticulously researched biography of Buddy Bradley, the visionary choreographer who revolutionized jazz and tap dance, electrified Broadway, and transformed London’s West End. With passionate narrative drive, Maureen Footer restores Bradley’s rightful place in dance history, tracing influences from across geographies, performance genres, and shifting social circumstances. A celebration of artistry, resilience, and cultural legacy, this book is essential reading for anyone passionate about dance, history, and the fight for recognition.”
    —Thomas F. DeFrantz, author of Dancing Revelations: Alvin Ailey’s Embodiment of African American Culture

    “With exemplary research and insights into the life and work of Buddy Bradley, one of the legends of the dance world, Maureen Footer places into the spotlight an innovative yet often overlooked choreographer. Feel the Floor is an engaging, informative, and accessible biography that will appeal not only to anyone interested in the history of dance but also musical theatre and cinema.”
    —Stephen Bourne, author of Black in the British Frame: Black People in British Film and Television 1896–1996
    Maureen Footer is author of George Stacey and the Creation of American Chic and Dior and His Decorators: Victor Grandpierre, Georges Geffroy, and the New Look. Her books have been reviewed in The Financial Times, Forbes, the Times Literary Supplement, Vogue, Wall Street Journal, and Vanity Fair, among others. Ms. Footer sits on the boards of the New York City Ballet and the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library, the preeminent dance research institution in the world. She can be found today studying tap in dance studios and dancing to African drums in the East Village.
    Maureen Footer View titles by Maureen Footer
    Introduction

    PART 1: SOUTHERN RHYTHMS, 1838–1920

    CHAPTER 1
    Ancestral Whispers

    CHAPTER 2
    Fathers and Sons in the Black Belt of Alabama

    CHAPTER 3
    Post-Reconstruction: Explorations Beyond Home

    CHAPTER 4
    An Observant Child in Birmingham

    CHAPTER 5
    Crossing the Mason-Dixon Line to Harrisburg

    PART 2: NEW YORK JAZZ, 1921–1930

    CHAPTER 6
    Harlem Chorus Boy

    CHAPTER 7
    Celebrity Dance Instructor on Broadway

    CHAPTER 8
    A Black Choreographer on the Great White Way

    PART 3: LONDON CALLING, 1931–1932

    CHAPTER 9
    Ever Green and Affirmation

    CHAPTER 10
    Appraising London

    CHAPTER 11
    Expatriation

    PART 4: THE EXPANSIVE YEARS, 1932–1938

    CHAPTER 12
    On Pointe with Frederick Ashton and Noël Coward

    CHAPTER 13
    Ballyhoo to the Folies Bergère

    CHAPTER 14
    Seduction and the Camera’s Eye

    CHAPTER 15
    The Gauguin of the Dance

    CHAPTER 16
    Dancing on the Ceiling

    CHAPTER 17
    Top Hat and Tails

    CHAPTER 18
    Follow the Sun to Happy Returns

    PART 5: SHIFTS IN RHYTHM, 1939–1960

    CHAPTER 19
    Dancing in the Blitz

    CHAPTER 20
    All That Jazz

    CHAPTER 21
    Jazz Maestro

    CHAPTER 22
    Troupes, Tours, and Baby Laurence

    PART 6: RESOLUTION, 1961–1972

    CHAPTER 23
    The Swerving Sixties

    CHAPTER 24
    Back to the Future

    EPILOGUE

    Acknowledgments
    Chronology
    Notes
    Bibliography
    Image Credits
    Index

    About

    A stunning resurrection of the visionary choreographer Buddy Bradley whose contributions to rhythm tap and jazz dance in the 1920s and ’30s indelibly transformed the way we move to music

    In Feel the Floor, Maureen Footer shows how Bradley’s revolutionary moves electrified Broadway in the 1920s and conquered London’s West End in the 1930s, introducing new inflections to the era’s tap and jazz dance.

    His experiments in rhythm and staging would anticipate bebop, and his influence even permeated classical dance, cross-pollinating with ballet choreographers like Frederick Ashton and George Balanchine.

    Mirroring today’s fight for recognition of Black contributors to transatlantic culture, Buddy Bradley’s story isn’t just one of influence. He created the movement language we still speak today.

    The white performers Bradley taught to move became legends: Eleanor Powell, Ruby Keeler, Adele Astaire, Jessie Matthews. Bradley was also the first to fuse movement, character, and narrative in the theater, setting the stage for the integrated book musical and the careers of Agnes de Mille, Bob Fosse, and Jerome Robbins.

    In post-war Great Britain, as Black American dancers and jazz musicians flocked to London (and a congenial base at Bradley’s dance school), he danced and choreographed with Baby Laurence, Pete Nugent, Frankie Manning, and Mabel Lee, among others.

    Footer spent five years in prodigious research, crossing two continents, tracking ancestral history in the Deep South, and enlisting private investigators to uncover Bradley’s buried legacy.

    Feel the Floor corrects the false narratives that have erased Bradley’s influence, revealing how one man’s genius transformed musical theater, shaped modern ballet, and rewired the very DNA of American dance.

    Reviews

    “An excellent and overdue portrayal of a backstage trailblazer, showing Bradley’s hard work, dedication, and sacrifice to make a life doing what he loved.”
    —Library Journal

    “Descended from free, landowning Southern Blacks, Buddy Bradley claimed his territory as an innovative jazz tap dancer and choreographer. He began in Harlem Renaissance New York, then, when segregation dwarfed his ambitions, he moved to London. There, artists and audiences were eager to see a multilingual choreography, which joined jazz tap to ballet and musical theater. His work was brilliant and wide ranging. So is Maureen Footer’s biography. With historical rigor and narrative elegance, she restores the life and art of an American dance genius.”
    —Margo Jefferson, author of Negroland

    “Feel the Floor tells the rich, layered story of choreographer Buddy Bradley and his journey from Alabama to Harlem and on to London’s West End. Maureen Footer weaves a compelling tale, showing how Buddy Bradley’s influence on dance on both stage and screen spread across the Atlantic and brought the dance culture of the Black American South to the world.”
    —W. Ralph Eubanks, author of When It’s Darkness on the Delta

    “Finally! A meticulously researched biography of Buddy Bradley, the visionary choreographer who revolutionized jazz and tap dance, electrified Broadway, and transformed London’s West End. With passionate narrative drive, Maureen Footer restores Bradley’s rightful place in dance history, tracing influences from across geographies, performance genres, and shifting social circumstances. A celebration of artistry, resilience, and cultural legacy, this book is essential reading for anyone passionate about dance, history, and the fight for recognition.”
    —Thomas F. DeFrantz, author of Dancing Revelations: Alvin Ailey’s Embodiment of African American Culture

    “With exemplary research and insights into the life and work of Buddy Bradley, one of the legends of the dance world, Maureen Footer places into the spotlight an innovative yet often overlooked choreographer. Feel the Floor is an engaging, informative, and accessible biography that will appeal not only to anyone interested in the history of dance but also musical theatre and cinema.”
    —Stephen Bourne, author of Black in the British Frame: Black People in British Film and Television 1896–1996

    Author

    Maureen Footer is author of George Stacey and the Creation of American Chic and Dior and His Decorators: Victor Grandpierre, Georges Geffroy, and the New Look. Her books have been reviewed in The Financial Times, Forbes, the Times Literary Supplement, Vogue, Wall Street Journal, and Vanity Fair, among others. Ms. Footer sits on the boards of the New York City Ballet and the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library, the preeminent dance research institution in the world. She can be found today studying tap in dance studios and dancing to African drums in the East Village.
    Maureen Footer View titles by Maureen Footer

    Table of Contents

    Introduction

    PART 1: SOUTHERN RHYTHMS, 1838–1920

    CHAPTER 1
    Ancestral Whispers

    CHAPTER 2
    Fathers and Sons in the Black Belt of Alabama

    CHAPTER 3
    Post-Reconstruction: Explorations Beyond Home

    CHAPTER 4
    An Observant Child in Birmingham

    CHAPTER 5
    Crossing the Mason-Dixon Line to Harrisburg

    PART 2: NEW YORK JAZZ, 1921–1930

    CHAPTER 6
    Harlem Chorus Boy

    CHAPTER 7
    Celebrity Dance Instructor on Broadway

    CHAPTER 8
    A Black Choreographer on the Great White Way

    PART 3: LONDON CALLING, 1931–1932

    CHAPTER 9
    Ever Green and Affirmation

    CHAPTER 10
    Appraising London

    CHAPTER 11
    Expatriation

    PART 4: THE EXPANSIVE YEARS, 1932–1938

    CHAPTER 12
    On Pointe with Frederick Ashton and Noël Coward

    CHAPTER 13
    Ballyhoo to the Folies Bergère

    CHAPTER 14
    Seduction and the Camera’s Eye

    CHAPTER 15
    The Gauguin of the Dance

    CHAPTER 16
    Dancing on the Ceiling

    CHAPTER 17
    Top Hat and Tails

    CHAPTER 18
    Follow the Sun to Happy Returns

    PART 5: SHIFTS IN RHYTHM, 1939–1960

    CHAPTER 19
    Dancing in the Blitz

    CHAPTER 20
    All That Jazz

    CHAPTER 21
    Jazz Maestro

    CHAPTER 22
    Troupes, Tours, and Baby Laurence

    PART 6: RESOLUTION, 1961–1972

    CHAPTER 23
    The Swerving Sixties

    CHAPTER 24
    Back to the Future

    EPILOGUE

    Acknowledgments
    Chronology
    Notes
    Bibliography
    Image Credits
    Index

    Additional formats

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