#Repost pop.culture.historian ... Maurice Hines remembers the first time he went to The Apollo. “There was this woman there who was bossing everyone around,” he said in his show, “Tappin’ Thru Life.” “She said, ‘I’ll put them on as a special treat, but they can’t compete ’cause they’re too cute and they’ll win. It’ll be unfair.’ She didn’t even know we could dance. I asked her who she was, and she said she was a comedian. Turns out it was Dinah Washington.” Maurice told The Smithsonian that their teacher, Henry LeTang, gave them advice: “You got to dance, you got to flip, you got to jump around. You got to get the audience loving you so they have no decision to make. There’s no ‘Will I like them?’ No, no, no!” So, that’s what they did. And they crushed. They were offered a regular spot, and they played The Apollo every other week, soaking up lessons from the legendary hoofers there like Charles “Honi” Coles, Howard “Sandman” Sims, the Nicholas Brothers, and Chuck Green. “It ...