module iii - social dancing and cultural identity february 15 the jook continuum - social dancing...

Module III - Social Dancing and Cultural Identity

February 15

The Jook Continuum - Social Dancing

Innovations on Black Broadway

Mid-term review

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

Transition from Minstrelsy

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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

Harlem Nightclubs and Ballrooms

• Savoy, Renaissance, Alhambra

• New dances included Lindy Hop, Jitterbug, Shag, Suzi Q, Camel Walk, and Truckin

Jook Continuum

• Issues of identity -

• How did the jook joints help shape African-American identity?

• What is the jook continuim?

Social Dance Context



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

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

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

End of Reconstruction 1877

• Segregation entrenched vigilante violence • Lynchings were common, economic depression

African Americans Move North



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

Social dance Context



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

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

The Black Bottom



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

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

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.

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

African-American vernacular dance

• Continual improvisation

• Propulsive rhythms

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.

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

Chorus Line dancing



Chorus Line dancing

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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

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

Savage Dance - A later sensation of Josephine Baker

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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

module iii - social dancing and cultural identity february 15 the jook continuum - social dancing...

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