Module III - Social Dancing and Cultural Identity

1. Module III - Social Dancing and Cultural Identity February 15 The Jook Continuum - Social Dancing Innovations on Black Broadway Mid-term review

2. Intro • Post Civil War, blacks began to leave for the north • Black migration north due to poor crops in south, lynchings • WWI industrial jobs in the North • Migration to Harlem

3. Transition from Minstrelsy

4. Jook Continuum - a major draw for young Negroes • Church main social center with its ban on dancing • Jook Joints, dance joints for free blacks, where social dances evolved • Dance Halls • Honky Tonks • After Hours – Buffet affairs • House Parties

5. Harlem Nightclubs and Ballrooms • Savoy, Renaissance, Alhambra • New dances included Lindy Hop, Jitterbug, Shag, Suzi Q, Camel Walk, and Truckin

6. Jook Continuum • Issues of identity - • How did the jook joints help shape African-American identity? • What is the jook continuim?

7. Social Dance Context

8. Circumstances of slavery • Blacks lived together and danced openly and in secret in their quarter a homogeneous environment decided African-American • Post slavery - some blacks headed for nearest urban area, most stayed rural as share croppers • Distinctions between family/community blurred because of the constant slave trade

9. Emancipation- forced major changes in rural black life • Families dispersed into separate living quarters • Landowners still exerted control over their sharecropping work force • Didn’t bear the burden of paying for housing or food • African-Americans moved around the south, so did entertainers

10. Emancipation- forced major changes in rural black life • Reconstruction, sacred and secular had separated, • Benevelant societies arose to fill need for social events • Churches became primary social gathering place • Emancipation Day Celebration/Juneteenth Day -June 19

11. End of Reconstruction 1877 • Segregation entrenched vigilante violence • Lynchings were common, economic depression

12. African Americans Move North

13. Jook Houses, Honky Tonks, After hours Joints • Linked to peasant class African-American • Night clubs that offered drinking, music, dancing and gambling, some prostitution • Classic jook in small town, shoddy confines, • First dance arena after emancipation nurtured the black regional culture • Music provided by guitars in south, in north pianos predominant • Dances - snake hips, charleston, skinny, funky butt, twist, slow drag, buzzard lope, black bottom, the itch fish tail and the grind

14. Social dance Context

15. Honky Tonks • Urban versions of jook joints comes to refer to a kind of music • Jelly Roll Morton - more up tempo suited many African-American dances • Patrons differed - mostly laborers, railroad workers, loggers, not farmers • Music more sophisticated, blues and early jazz dancing • Honky Tonk dances were part of a cultural cycle

16. After hours Joints - more urban and upscale • Called buffet houses because of variety of offerings included drugs, erotic shows, homosexual encounters • Popular with entertainers and Pullmen porters – upper class blacks • Dance styles responded to the fancier dress and costly hairdo’s People wanted to sweat only so much • Dances became more upright, dance = sexuality and pleasure • Partner dancing becomes more isolated and individual

17. The Black Bottom

18. House Parties, responded to need to pay the rent • Temporary events as the need arose • Food, drink, dance and music, often live or from a Victola or radio • Gambling, run by a pro-took a take 4-10% • Rent parties even more intimate than jooks, again free of white eyes, Dances -charleston, shimmy shake etc, cutting up or embellishing vernacular steps was important

19. Roadshows in the South • Three big ones - Plant and Tom shows • In Old Kentucky, white with black musicians and dancers • Friday night dance contests, on tour, anyone could enter • Black Patti’s Troubadours

20. TOBA • Theatre Owners Booking Association • Tough on Black Actors • A circuit for young talent to mature • Bill Robinson, Eddie Rector, Pete Nugent, “if you couldn’t dance you were out instantly” • Not a place to make money, but to belong, sense of community and to learn the business.

22. Picks • Black children who danced and song • Picks backed up big white stars, often women like Sophie Tucker • Picks were really child labor in show business

23. African-American vernacular dance • Continual improvisation • Propulsive rhythms

24. Shuffle Along • 1921, Black Broadway hit that initiated the Harlem Renaissance • Written by actor dancers Flourney Miller and Aubrey Lyles • Lyricist/composer Noble Sissle and Eubie Blake • Starred Florence Mills with young Josephine Baker in the chorus • Included popular songs and chorus line dancing, • Introduced tap dance to white audiences.

25. Shuffle Along • Encouraged changes in all Musical theatre- especially toward chorus lines that could dance. • Hard time getting show launched • After NYC run – a huge hit and long tour – still faced resistance by unknown theatre producers

26. Chorus Line dancing

27. Chorus Line dancing

28. Chorus Line dancing

29. Shuffle Along • Main achievement, introduction of the strong 16 chorus girl line • Show opened up opportunity for future black musicals and for black dancers and singers to emerge in white arena • Negro vernacular dancing recognized as a significant influence for American dance

30. Running Wild - 1923 • Main achievement, making the Charleston the rage • Introduced the Broadway version of the Charleston with a song “Charleston” that popularized it • Actually 1st introduction in Liza – 1922

31. Savage Dance - A later sensation of Josephine Baker

32. Chocolate Dandies, Dixie to Broadway • Featured Josephine Baker, 1924, 96 shows this tour was smooth and successful • Not the struggle for acceptance of Shuffle Along • Reviews criticized the white Broadway themes and tendencies. • This contributed to a lull in black musicals though mid 20s • The dancing remained, had changed all future Broadway dance routines