Henry LeTang’s 1 – 2 – 3 As one of the great teachers LeTang taught and/or worked with a multitude of entertainment personalities, including Lena Horne, Betty Hutton, Billie Holiday, Eleanor Powell,Lola Falana, Peter Gennaro, Leslie Uggams, Joey Heatherton, Chita Rivera, Ben Vereen, Debbie Allen, Hinton Battle, Savion Glover, and the Hines brothers, Maurice and Gregory over the decades.

LeTang devised dance routines for the Broadway musicals My Dear Public and Dream with Musicin the mid-1940s, but his first credit as a full-fledged choreographer was the 1952 revue Shuffle Along with Eubie Blake. Twenty-six years later, he would receive Tony and Drama Desk Awardnominations for his work on Eubie!, a song-and-dance tribute to the musician. Additional credits include Sophisticated Ladies (1981), which earned him a second Tony nomination, and Black and Blue (1989), which finally won him the prize.

LeTang’s screen credits include Francis Ford Coppola’s The Cotton Club (1984) and Tap (1989). For television he choreographed The Garry Moore Show for seven years, staged the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon numerous times, and created dance routines for George Balanchine andMilton Berle. His last project was the Showtime bio-film Bojangles in 2001. The Oklahoma City University Ann Lacy School of American Dance and Arts Management, headed by Dean John Bedford and dance department chairman Jo Rowan, presented LeTang with a Living Treasure in American Dance Award in 1995 and with an Honorary Doctor of Performing Arts in American Dance degree in 2002. In the years prior to his death, he resided in Las Vegas, Nevada, teaching master classesfrom his home studio and travelling several times a year to hold classes in New York City.

LeTang died of natural causes in Las Vegas, Nevada at the age of 91. Below is one of Henry LeTang’s famous steps for you to learn.