Sanding (dance) the box of rosin before matches to improve his grip. Sims' popularity as a tap dancer and career at the Apollo certainly made him one of the most if not the most influential sand-dancer of all time. Sand dancing was also used by the popular comedic vaudeville trio, Wilson, Keppel and Betty. They spread sand over the stage in one of their most well-known numbers, "Sand Dance". In their performance, there was no allusion to African American heritage; rather to the sandy environs of Egypt, a clear inspiration for their number. In spite of this deviation from the African American
Musical theatre hall, pantomime and burletta dominated the London musical stage into the 1870s. In America, mid-18th century musical theatre entertainments included crude variety revue, which eventually developed into vaudeville, minstrel shows, which soon crossed the Atlantic to Britain, and Victorian burlesque, first popularized in the US by British troupes. A hugely successful musical that premiered in New York in 1866, "The Black Crook", was an original musical theatre piece that conformed to many of the modern definitions of a musical, including dance and original music that helped to tell the story. The spectacular production, famous for its skimpy costumes, ran for