Jazz Dance History in America as researched by Bob Boross

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ROOTS OF THEATRICAL JAZZ DANCE

The next major change in vernacular dance after minstrelsy came with the advent of ragtime music and ballroom dancing after 1910. The Stearns say that before 1910, there were only two types of songs, happy or sad. During this decade, songs whose lyrics described how to do a dance were being written by Negro composers. A barrage of animal dances, indirectly inspired by African animal dances, swept white ballrooms. Some of these were the Turkey Trot, the Monkey Glide, the Chicken Scratch, and the Bunny Hug. Irene and Vernon Castle popularized the Turkey Trot in the Broadway show The Sunshine Girl and made dancing popular in high society. The invasion of ballrooms with vernacular inspired dances set the stage for the same process to occur in the white world of Broadway.

Darktown Follies opened at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem in 1911 acccording to the Stearns and 1913 by the account of Emery. It featured the Cakewalk, Ballin' the Jack, and the Texas Tommy (the latter being significant as a forerunner of the Lindy). Produced by J. Leubrie Hill, it introduced social dances in a theatrical setting, and its popularity began affecting how white producers assembled their shows. In 1927, Theophilus Lewis of the Pittsburgh Courier wrote:

"The tendency to borrow from the colored stage openly ... began when J. Leubrie Hill produced his 'Darktown Follies' ... Hill's production marked the turning point in the relations existing between the white stage and the colored stage...Before that time the Negro theater had borrowed its materials and methods from the white stage."

That the legendary impressario Florenz Zeigfield purchased outright a circle dance from Darktown Follies for his own Broadway show on the roof of the New York Theatre illustrates this point. It also was the beginning of the nightly migration by whites to Harlem in search of entertainment ideas for Broadway shows. The Stearns, however, feel that the most significant aspect being borrowed was not actual dances but the "swinging or propulsive" qualities of the songs and dances.

In 1921, Shuffle Along featured a jazz inspired dance called the Charleston that created a sensation due to its unbridled energy and irrepressible spirit. James Haskins, in Black Dance in America, stated that:

"The most immediate effect of Shuffle Along was an absolute craze for jazz dancing. White New Yorkers suddenly decided that black dancing was not so low-life after all. In fact, judging by the young people in the show's chorus, this kind of dance seemed to be the ticket to happiness."

Shuffle Along also brought tap dance to white audiences, and black musicals were now in vogue. Overall, musical comedies took on a new, more rhythmic life - the chorus girls danced to jazz music and danced vernacular jazz dances. This trend continued until the late 1920s. It died due to the depression and careless presentation by Negroes trying to stage the stereotypical movement they thought white audiences wanted, rather than presenting authentic jazz dances and songs.