Hinton Battle

Battle appeared in 15 films and television programs, including Quantum Leap, Dreamgirls, and Touched by an Angel. On Quantum Leap, he played Thames, the evil Observer from the future, in the final installment of the Evil Leaper trilogy of episodes.

Battle played the role of the Cat in the first U.S. pilot for science-fiction sitcom Red Dwarf, based on the British show of the same name. Notably, he guest-starred as Sweet the jazz demon, in "Once More, with Feeling", Buffy The Vampire Slayer's musical episode in which his spell forces the characters to sing their biggest secrets and fears.

Battle's other Broadway starring roles included Dancin', Dreamgirls, Sophisticated Ladies for which he won his first Tony Award, Chicago (Billy Flynn), and Ragtime (Coalhouse Walker Jr.), which garnered rave reviews from the Chicago press and earned him an Ira Aldridge Award. His role in The Tap Dance Kid earned Hinton a second Tony Award as well as the NAACP Award and the Fred Astaire Award. He won his third Tony Award for Miss Saigon.

Battle's long list of television credits included Shine, his one-man show presented at the HBO Aspen Comedy Arts Festival; The Kennedy Center's 25th Anniversary; These Old Broads, co-starring Shirley MacLaine, Joan Collins, Debbie Reynolds, and Elizabeth Taylor; and ABC/Disney's Child Star: The Shirley Temple Story where Hinton served as a choreographer and co-star playing Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson.

As a choreographer, Battle's work has been seen on the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Once More, with Feeling", These Old Broads, Foreign Student (with Charles Dutton), The Golden Globe Awards, Dance in America; the sitcoms Fired Up, Sister, Sister, The Trouble with Normal, and The Boys. Hinton has choreographed promos for Warner Brothers, commercials for Coca-Cola, Chicago the musical, and New York Top Appliances. He served as Associate Choreographer on the 65th and 66th Annual Academy Awards with Debbie Allen.

Off-Broadway, Battle served as co-director and choreographer for Evil Dead The Musical. Having finished choreographing the movie musical Idlewild, he joined with Wynton Marsalis for The Buddy Bolden Story, a feature film about one of the originators of jazz in the United States. He then directed the stage musical Respect, a musical journey of women from the 1900s to 2007. Battle's most recent creation, a dance form called Swop that combines swing and hip-hop, was performed on the highly rated Dancing with the Stars in 2006. In 2014, Battle starred in the off-Broadway production Cindy: The Musical.

In 2017, Battle founded the Hinton Battle Dance Academy.