Willie "The Lion" Smith said of sanding, "You could really hear and feel the rhythm when the dancers shuffled around in a nice pair of patent-leather shoes".
[4] Early straight jig dancers would scatter sand on wooden floors for traction, as was done at a famous 1862 competition between Dick Carroll and Tommy Peel.
The music played for 19th-century variety theater sand dancers was in 22 time in schottische tempo, but with a great deal of syncopation.
"[7] A 1942 New York Post article noted that African-American tap star John Bubbles' sand dancing was "a sort of rhythmic, swishing shuffle" and that "practically all the action is from the ankles down, with the dancer's feet never leaving the ground.
A writer in the New York Sun in 1917 recalled that decades earlier Kitty O'Neil "...used to step from the wings of Pastor’s Theatre attired in tights and shake a paper bag full of white sand on the stage.
Sand dancing was a specialty act for many vaudeville and music hall performers, including George Burns, who kept it up for decades.
In addition to John Bubbles (who taught the technique to Fred Astaire), prominent black sand dancers included Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Sammy Davis Jr., Harriet Browne and, especially, Howard "Sandman" Sims, long-time MC of the famous amateur shows at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York City.