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
Taxi dance hall to disguise themselves as dance schools. In 1921 the police commission ruled against employment of women as taxi dancers, and San Francisco's taxi dance halls were permanently shut down. Around the time that San Francisco's taxi dance halls were being shut down, the taxi dance hall was being reinvented in differing formats elsewhere in America. Dance academies, which were struggling to survive, began to consider the ticket-a-dance system. Previous to the ticket-a-dance system, dance schools would use the "line up plan" to provide dance partners for their students. Female dance instructors would get in a line, and students would then