Streaming file 1 (approximately one hour and 41 minutes), June 10, 2022. Ethel Waterman Bruneau speaks with Travis Knights about her family and childhood in Harlem [New York, (N.Y.)] including the date and place of her birth (January 1, 1936 and New York); the fact that she uses her middle name Waterman only when it is important; her parents including their background and occupations; her siblings who included foster sisters; her daily dance lessons; performing as a trio with Douglas Collins and Poppy Scott, and as a solo act; the television shows including Spotlight on Harlem and the venues including Smalls Paradise where they performed; Mary Bruce, whose class she started taking when she was three; reminiscences of Eubie Blake, who taught a guest class at Bruce's school [Mary Bruce Dancing School]; more on the clubs where she regularly performed; the ballet classes at Bruce's school, with Bruce playing the piano; other guest teachers; reminiscences of Frank Schiffman, owner of the Apollo Theater, coming to her class to recruit dancers; her aunt Nelson Kelly who took her to see shows including at the 92nd Street Y and at Radio City Music Hall; taking class with Frances Cole; an anecdote about Cole telling her she should be in the Rockettes and Bruneau's response that "she was the wrong color"; her intense focus on dancing and singing as a reason she was able to ignore the racism and pervasive discrimination against Blacks; (brief) reminiscences of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson; more on Bruce including her having been the first Black person to bring her shows to Carnegie Hall; meeting Maurice and Gregory Hines as children when they took class with Bruce; other notable people who took class with Bruce including Sugar Ray Robinson; her mother's connection to the Apollo Theater as an ad hoc caterer; [Gordon] Parks who photographed her and other performers at the Apollo; an anecdote about how she met Pearl Bailey who then hired her to go on tour; dancers who inspired her including Bill [William Eugene] Bailey; how she persuaded Bunny Briggs [Bernard Briggs] to teach her tap dancing in exchange for going to his catechism class; her feelings about religion and going to church; more on Bill Robinson; more on Bill Bailey; her parents' guidance and her focus on dancing as reasons she stayed out of trouble with men and drugs; more on Bruce including the disciplined behavior she required of her students; Red [Bruneau's husband Henri "Ti-Rouge" Bruneau] including how she managed his gambling habit; more on her trio with Collins and Scott including how they would steal steps for their act; winning four times on Paul Whiteman's weekly [radio] show on CBS [Bruneau calls out to her daughter Suzanne regarding the title (Reelblack on YouTube TV) of a show she had been watching; her daughter briefly appears and provides the title]; Bruneau speaks about the show; her joy in dancing, ever since she was a student at Bruce's school; Bruce's policy of accepting all students even if they could not afford to pay; her gratitude to Bruce.
Streaming file 2 (approximately one hour and 28 minutes), June 13, 2022. Ethel Waterman Bruneau speaks with Travis Knights about her audition for [a dance troupe to accompany] the Cab Calloway Orchestra on tour in Canada; reminiscences of Pearl Bailey; an anecdote about how Bill Bailey became her seat mate on the bus; an anecdote about [Charles] "Honi" [Coles] and [Charles] "Cholly" [Atkins] looking out for her on the tour; the show, including her solo act; her husband, Red [Henri "Ti-Rouge" Bruneau] including how they met in Montreal and married two years later; returning to New York after three weeks in Canada, and playing at the Apollo Theatre as part of The Pearl Bailey Big Revue; returning to Montreal as a dancer with Louis Armstrong and performing at numerous clubs; the large number of strippers from Las Vegas [Nevada] who danced at the clubs where she performed; staying in her dressing room between acts and in general, not mixing much with the other performers; an anecdote about her telling off another dancer who was dancing in her space including Pearl Bailey's reaction upon hearing about it; her agent, Roy Cooper, whom she first met in Montreal [and who gave her the name Miss Swing]; some of the venues he booked her into; reminiscences of the Montreal clubs and their owners; Mary Bruce's role in choreographing and finding music and musicians for Bruneau's acts; how she defines an "act"; what makes an act good; her occasional injection of comedy into her act including her "doing" Moms Mabley; more on how she creates her acts including an anecdote about Teddy Hale; reminiscences of the Savoy Ballroom; the birth of her daughter Susie (Suzanne) in 1961 and, 9 years later, her son JP [Jean-Paul]; how she came to begin teaching tap dancing; Kim [Reany], who became her assistant; at the suggestion of her second husband Paul renting space and opening a studio.
Streaming file 3 (approximately one hour and 21 minutes), June 13, 2022. Ethel Waterman Bruneau speaks with Travis Knights about Broadway tap as compared with rhythm tap including the stiffness and lack of individual style typical of the former; Frances Cole and Paul Draper as teachers who taught both types; Black and blue as an example of a Broadway show in which dancers danced in their individual styles; learning how to teach from her classes with Mary Bruce, for example how to teach students to "fall off the log"; how she teaches rhythm to students including her use of a metronome; how she begins with students new to tap dancing, adding steps as they progress; the Bruce sisters (Mary and Sadie) as pioneers with respect to the teaching of tap dancing in a classroom setting; "Harlem style" as her own style; the more eclectic style of the Bruce sisters; (briefly) finding inspiration in the Whitman Sisters; her consistent approach over the decades with respect to her teaching methods; why she writes down (new) steps instead of filming them; her practice of identifying the origin of the step she is teaching to her students including how she often turns this into a history lesson; her concern that her students understand the legacy of tap dancing, in particular that of Black tap dancers; how she and Paul started to bring tap dancing shows to Montreal, featuring such luminaries as Bunny Briggs [Bernard Briggs], [Howard] "Sandman" Sims, Chuck Green, and [James] "Buster" Brown; how this led to positive publicity for Bruneau with the result that more people started coming to her shows and classes; bringing Heather Cornell and Manhattan Tap to perform in Montreal; reasons she likes to teach tap dancing to big band music; other musicians she likes including Oscar Peterson; her practice of giving her students music they can grow into; more about Mary Bruce including the fact that she was still teaching at age 96; people she considers her disciples including Knights; her admiration for Katherine Dunham as a teacher; having first learned Afro-Cuban dance from Dunham; her pride in students like Knights, whom she considers her legacy.