Harriet "Quicksand" Browne (August 7, 1932 – September 1, 1997) was an American tap dancer, educator and choreographer who was best known for her innovation in sanding.
After she got a job in the chorus at a club in Greenwich Village, although she continued to tour, she settled in New York City.
She performed with tap dancers including Bunny Briggs, Charles Cook, James "Buster" Brown and The Silver Belles.
[3] Browne was born on the south side of Chicago, Illinois to her parents Ruby and Reuben Jordan.
Her entire immediate family was musically inclined as her mother was a hotel worker and amateur musician; her father was a pharmacist, shoe salesman, and self-taught dancer; and her elder sister, Marquita, was a singer.
In the early 1950s, Browne left Chicago to pursue chorus line dancing in New York City.
Over the course of her career, she tapped alongside the Cab Calloway Band, Flip Wilson, Betty Carter, Dinah Washington, Della Reese, and T-bone Walker.
Browne also became the youngest member of The Silver Belles, an African American dance troupe based in Harlem, New York and made up of former chorus line dancers.
By sprinkling a thin layer of sand over a wooden board, the rhythms of her tap shoes could be both "enhanced and softened.