were performing at the Pearl, the manager of The Lafayette, a New York vaudeville showcase, saw them and immediately wanted them to perform for his theater. The brothers moved to Philadelphia in 1926 and gave their first performance at the Standard a few years later. In 1932, they became the featured act at Harlem's Cotton Club when Harold was 11 and Fayard was 18. They astonished their mainly white audiences dancing to the jazz tempos of "Bugle Call Rag"; they were the only entertainers in the African-American cast allowed to mingle with white patrons. They performed at the Cotton Club for two years, working with the orchestras of Lucky Millinder, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Jimmy Lunceford. During this time, they made their uncredited movie debut, in the 1932 short Pie, Pie Blackbird, featuring Eubie Blake and his orchestra. The brothers attributed their success to their unique style of dancing - a hybrid of tap dance, ballet, and acrobatics sometimes called "acrobatic dancing" or "flash dancing" - which was greatly in demand during this time. Producer Samuel Goldwyn saw them at the Cotton Club and invited them to California to be a part of Kid Millions (1934), their first performances in a Hollywood movie. The brothers made their Broadway debut in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1936 and also appeared in Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's musical Babes in Arms in 1937. They impressed their choreographer, George Balanchine, who invited them to appear in Babes in Arms. With Balanchine's training, they learned many new stunts. Their talent led many to presume they were trained ballet dancers. By 1940, they had moved to Hollywood and for several decades divided their time between movies, nightclubs, concerts, Broadway, television, and extensive tours of Latin America, Africa, and Europe. They toured England with a production of Blackbirds. They gave a Royal Command Performance at the London Paladium for King George VI in 1948. In 1991, the Nicholas Brothers received Kennedy Center Honors in recognition of their six decades of achievements. A year later, a documentary film, We Sing & We Dance, celebrated their careers and included tributes from Mikhail Baryshnikov, Gregory Hines, M.C. Hammer, and Clarke Peters. In 1994, members of the cast of Hot Shoe Shuffle also paid them tribute. Teaching The Nicholas Brothers taught master classes in tap dance as teachers-in-residence at Harvard University and Radcliffe at Ruth Page Visiting Artists. Among their