View source for Class act (performance)

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{About|a noun phrase that lauds an admirable person, team, or organization||Class Act (disambiguation)}}

A '''class act''' is a performance, personal trait or behavior that is distinctive and of high quality.  As a [[noun phrase]], it is typically used to refer to a single person, a team (such as performing artists working together) or an organization.

== Usage and contemporary etymology ==
=== In sports ===
In sports, a "class act" would be an athlete who not only performs exceptionally well, but also exhibits a range of other admirable qualities on and off the field.

=== In dance ===
In dance during the [[jazz age]] and the [[swing era]] (the first half of the 20th century) – [[tap dance]] in particular – a class act was, and still is, a complimentary reference to a dance team that exhibits precision, elegant dress, detached coolness, flawless execution, and dignity.<ref name="Atkins 2001" /> In 1946, after serving in the Army, [[Charles "Honi" Coles]] and [[Cholly Atkins]] collaborated as a dance duo that became highly acclaimed.  British dance critic Edward Thorpe, in his 1989 book, ''Black Dance,'' described Coles and Atkins as {{nowrap| ... }}

{{cquote|the ultimate example of what other protagonists of American vernacular dance call "a class act," and there can be no higher praise than that.<ref name="Thorpe 1990" />|25px|25px|}}

For black dancers of the [[jazz age]] and the [[swing era]], the noun phrase, "class act," had a more nuanced meaning.  According to [[Cholly Atkins]], some performers and managers harbored [[stereotypical]] preferences of how black male dancers and musical comedy dance teams should dress and perform.  To those performers and managers, a class act was more apropos for white male entertainers.  Black entertainers who did it were likely to be perceived as defiant. [[Cholly Atkins|Atkins]], in his 2001 book, ''Class Act'' (co-authored with Jacqui Malone), stated that,

{{cquote|If they ''[white dancers]'' were singers or comics, they didn't like the fact that we were also doing those things as part of our act.|25px|25px|Cholly Atkins (2001)<ref name="Atkins 2001" />}}

Against the backdrop of dance teams working in the [[blackface]] tradition, Atkins was one in a long list of virtuoso black male dance artists who rejected the [[minstrel show]] [[stereotypes]] of the grinning-and-dancing clowns {{nowrap| ... }} lazy, incompetent [[Fool (stock character)|fools]] {{nowrap| ... }} and [[dandy|dandies]] who thought only of flashy clothes, flirtatious courting, new dances, and good looks.<ref name="Seibert 2016" /> Atkins' and his peers aspired to pure artistic expression driven by a desire for respectability and equality on the American concert stage.<ref name="PerformingArtsEnclopedia 1977" />

==== Class act syles, in tap ====
[[Marshall Stearns]], in the 1964 film-made-for-TV, ''Over the Top to Bebop,'' stated that the class act "started with the [[Tap dance|soft-shoe]] and the sand and the [[Tap dance technique|shuffle]]; and it grew up and became a dance in which you showed elegance and dignity and precision. And every class act in the thirties and forties had their own [[Tap dance|soft-shoe]]."<ref name="Film-Over-the-Top 1965" /><ref name="DanceResearchJournal Summer 1988" />

== Selected "class acts" ==
=== In tap dance ===
* The Cotton Club Boys, from 1934 to 1940, were the [[Cotton Club]]'s stock class act dance troupe
* [[John W. Bubbles|John "Bubbles" Sublett]] and Ford "Buck" Washington
* [[Cholly Atkins]] and [[Honi Coles]]
* [[Willie Covan]] and Leonard Ruffin
* Eddie Sledge and Fred Davis ''(aka'' Fred and Sledge)
* [[Charles Cook (dancer)|Charles Cook]] and [[Ernest Brown (dancer)|Ernest Brown]]
* [[Eddie Rector]] (1890–1962)<ref name="Willis 2016" />
* Dickie Wells, [[Jimmy Mordecai]], Earnest Taylor
* [[Nicholas brothers]]<ref name="Hill 2002" />
* [[Pete Nugent|Gary Lambert "Pete" Nugent]] (1909–1973), Irving "Peaches" Beamon (born 1911), Duke Miller (1910–1937)<ref name="Hill 2010" /><ref name="Hill 2002" />

=== In vaudeville ===
* [[J. Rosamond Johnson|Rosamond Johnson]] and [[Bob Cole (composer)|Bob Cole]], [[vaudeville]] duo that began in 1902<ref name="Wintz-Finkelman 2004" />

== Contrasting noun phrase ==
A "'''flash act'''," in tap dance, includes [[Acro dance|acrobatic]] movements.  The [[Nicholas brothers]], who famously performed class acts, also did flash acts.<ref name="Atkins 2001" />

== References ==
{{Reflist|50em|refs=

<ref name="Atkins 2001">''Class Act: The Jazz Life of Choreographer Cholly Atkins'' (memoir), by [[Cholly Atkins]] & Jacqui Malone, [[Columbia University Press]] (2001), pg. 114; {{OCLC|974087440}}<div style="margin-left:2em">[https://books.google.com/books?id=DQ0R8D6esKAC&pg=PA114 "Class act" (discussion)] ([https://books.google.com/books?id=k8YzCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA114 alternate link]) pg. 114<br />[https://books.google.com/books?id=DQ0R8D6esKAC&pg=PA226 "Class act" (defined)] ([https://books.google.com/books?id=k8YzCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA226 alternate link]), pg. 226<br />[https://books.google.com/books?id=DQ0R8D6esKAC&pg=PA227 "Flash act" (defined)] ([https://books.google.com/books?id=k8YzCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA227 alternate link]), pg. 227</div>Note: Malone, a dance and theater scholar at [[Queens College]], married, in 1973, Robert George O'Meally, PhD, American literature scholar and [[Zora Neale Hurston]] Professor of Literature at [[Columbia University]], who, additionally, writes about jazz</ref>

<ref name="PerformingArtsEnclopedia 1977">[http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/loc.music.tdabio.34/default.html "Class Act,"] ''Performing Arts Encyclopedia'' c/o [[Library of Congress]] (online); {{OCLC|76944288|54373218}}<div style="margin-left:2em">[http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/tda-browse?list=title&start=C&sort=titlesort (browse ''Encyclopedia)'']</div></ref>

<ref name="Film-Over-the-Top 1965">''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DJPusWF_-4 "Over the Top to Be-Bop]''<div style="margin-left:2em">
''[[Camera Three]]'', Season 10, Episode 18, [[CBS]]<br />
Aired Sunday, 11:30&nbsp;am, 3 January 1965<br />
Produced for [[WCBS-TV]] by Dan Gallagher<br />
Nick Havinga ''(né'' Nicholas Havinga, Jr.; born 1935), director
: Featured artists: [[Charles Coles|Coles]] and [[Cholly Atkins]] (dance duet)
: Other performers: [[Hank Jones]] (piano)
: James Fergus Macandrew (1906–1988) (program host)
: Guest: [[Marshall Stearns]], PhD
[[WCBS-TV]] ([[U-matic]]) (1965); {{OCLC||37633199|8511663}}<br />
New York State Education Dept (1965); {{OCLC|19009050}}<br />
Creative Arts Television ([[VHS]]) (19??); {{OCLC|38594171}}<br />
Creative Arts Television ([[VHS]]) (1997); {{OCLC|41462387|50611853}}<br />
Creative Arts Television (DVD) (2007); {{OCLC|181202686|174151608}}<br />
Aviva Films Ltd. (digital) (2007); {{OCLC|830519421}}</div></ref>

<ref name="DanceResearchJournal Summer 1988">"'Let the Punishment Fit the Crime': The Vocal Choreography of Cholly Atkins," by Jacqui Malone ([[Master of City Planning|MCP]]) ''(née'' Jacqueline Delores Malone; born 1947), ''[[Congress on Research in Dance#Dance Research Journal|Dance Research Journal]],'' Vol. 20, No. 1, Summer 1988, pps. 11–18 (retrieved 24 March 2017; stable URL {{url|https://www.jstor.org/stable/1478812}})</ref>

<ref name="Thorpe 1990">''Black Dance,'' by Edward ("Ted") Thorpe ''(né'' Edward Robert Thorpe; born 1926) (retired sometime before 1995, was a dance critic for the ''[[London Evening Standard]];'' he has been married to [[Gillian Freeman]], a writer, for {{age|1955|09|13}} years)<div style="margin-left:2em">[[Chatto & Windus]] (1989) {{OCLC|915815720}}<br />[[Overlook Press]] (1995); {{OCLC|260151435|232129452}}</div></ref>

<ref name="Hill 2010">''[https://books.google.com/books?id=_HERDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA41 Tap Dancing America: A Cultural History]'' ([https://books.google.com/books?id=rU9dUaCsd94C&pg=PA41 alternate link 1]; [https://books.google.com/books?id=dk1pAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA41 alt link 2]) by Constance Valis Hill, PhD (born 1947), [[Oxford University Press]] (2010), pps. 41–42; {{OCLC|888554987}}</ref>

<ref name="Hill 2002">''[https://books.google.com/books?id=XftIZVsinN8C&pg=PA134 Brotherhood in Rhythm: The Jazz Tap Dancing of the Nicholas Brothers],'' by Constance Valis Hill, PhD (born 1947), [[Cooper Square Press]] (2002), pps. 134; {{OCLC|845250422}}</ref>

<ref name="Wintz-Finkelman 2004">[https://books.google.com/books?id=z6Cs0Y1pvRAC&pg=PA636 "Johnson, John Rosamond"] ([https://books.google.com/books?id=0L0ULjto_OEC&pg=PT636 alt link]), Cary D. Wintz & [[Paul Finkelman]] (eds.), ''Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance'' (Vol. 1 of 2; A–J), [[Routledge]] (2004), pg. 636; {{oclc|648136726|56912455}}</ref>

<ref name="Seibert 2016">''What the Eye Hears: A History of Tap Dancing,'' by Brian Seibert, [[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]] (2016) pps. [https://books.google.com/books?id=SgPzCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA180 180], [https://books.google.com/books?id=SgPzCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA200 200], [https://books.google.com/books?id=SgPzCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA307 307]</ref>

<ref name="Willis 2016">''[https://books.google.com/books?id=VaEfDAAAQBAJ&dq=%22class+act%22+harlem&pg=PA213 Tappin' at the Apollo: The African American Female Tap Dance Duo Salt and Pepper],'' by Cheryl M. Willis, [[McFarland & Company]] (2016), pg. 213; {{OCLC|917343455}}</ref>

}}

[[Category:Dance terminology]]