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A brief look at Jazz History - The beginnings (1500 - early 1900s)

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Jazz dance style is the result of the blending and evolution of many different dance styles, and its place of origin is Africa.

In America and the West Indies, the European settlers took over large areas of land and they needed workers for their enormous plantations of sugar, cotton, tobacco and rice, and also as servants in their homes. At first, they enslaved the North American Indians, and hired European workers. The European workers were paid by the landowners to travel to America and work for them for several years. However, the workers soon wanted to buy land for themselves and set up their own businesses, so there was a great shortage of labour. The North American Indians were very susceptible to the diseases the European workers brought with them. The capturing of Africans as slaves came from the need for labour in the American Colonies.

From 1500, 12 million African people were taken from their homes, thrown onto ships and transported to the West Indies, America and England.

The conditions on the ships were atrocious. They were chained together and packed into filthy holds. During the voyage from Africa to America, the slaves were forced to dance on the ship' decks to 'keep them healthy'. By the time they reached America, many had died.

However, many of those who survived had absorbed something of British/European dance from watching the sailors and slave masters.

Ships stopped over in the West Indies, where the slaves could become acclimatised. This also increased the rate of survival, and consequently the profits of the slave merchants. Many slaves were purchased in the West Indies and remained on the islands. Here they were exposed to Spanish folk dance (because Spain initially controlled the West Indies), and after 1800, fashionable dances from the courts of Spain, France and England.

'Traditional African dances such as el Juba were modified to be performed with grace and elegance, using steps and figures from the court of Versailles, combined with hip movements of the Congo!' (From Lisa Lekis, 'Folk Dances in Latin America')

A completely new style of dancing developed, where African body movements and improvisation mixed with formal European set dances.Characteristics of Traditional African Dance

  1. Flat-footed, using gliding, dragging or shuffling steps. This came from dance being performed on the bare earth with bare feet.
  2. African Dance is frequently performed in a crouch, with the knees flexed and the body bent at the waist.
  3. Many African dances were about nature and so they imitated animals in realistic detail. For example, dances have portrayed eagles, buzzards, crows and rabbits.
  4. African Dance uses improvisation. This allows for freedom of personal expression, and has helped dance to evolve.
  5. African Dance is centrifugal. This means that it moves out from the hips/pelvis. "African Dance begins with the hips and moves outwards, employing the entire body". (Nadia Chilkovsky) This centrifugal movement is not found in European or Oriental dancing.
  6. African Dance is performed to rhythm, which gives it a swinging quality. This is also found in Jazz music.
A Comparison
Dance from Africa Dance from India
 
Themes about nature Themes about the supernatural
 
Natural forces, such as gravity Poised balance
 
Relationship between body and the earth Suspended movement
 
Dynamic Precise
 
Allows for improvisation Intricate hand movements
 
Music is polyrhythmic & propulsive Static, often non-locomotor
 
Dancing swings with the rhythm  
 

Slaves on plantations were not able to dance very often.

There were few instruments, and drums were banned initially, because slave owners realised that they could be used as methods of communication between plantations. However, it was the role of many slaves to serve in their owners' homes, and serve at social gatherings and parties. The slaves watched the dancing, seeing minuets and other popular European dances of the time, and would later imitate what they had seen (out of sight of their owners). Their movements 'mocked' those of their owners and the owners didn't realise. The Cakewalk is an example of one of these 'mocking' dances.

Slave owners noticed their slaves' new dance movements and made them perform them for entertainment for guests at parties. In fact, this led to competitions, run by the owners, where the slaves would perform these 'mocking' dances in the African style, and the owners would place bets on their favourites! The use of mocking, or satire is very significant, because it allowed the European dances to evolve, and gave the Afro-American dancers satisfaction and stimulation - satisfaction because they were making fun of the 'white folks' in an oblique way, and stimulation because it was risky. If their owners noticed the satire, the dancers would have been severely punished.

White Americans then began imitating the slaves, finding the relaxed hip movements and stance very different from their traditional stiff and upright style.

The best blend of Afro-American dance occurred in the less well-to-do suburbs of New Orleans, where African American people, released from slavery after the Civil War, were adjusting to city life and a small amount of 'freedom'. Here, they could be less inhibited, and they performed a mixture of both styles, without fear.

New Orleans in the 1800s was a blend of many races, including Africans, Spanish, Irish, French and English. Before the Civil War in 1860, there was less racial segregation, allowing for more of a mixing of cultures (especially in dance and music) than was found anywhere else in America.

Creoles (people of African and Spanish or French descent) were generally 'well-off' and sent their children to Paris to be educated. There, they learnt the quadrilles and other popular dances of the times, and in turn, demonstrated the African influenced steps performed in America. As a consequence, Europe was exposed to a new developing style for the first time.

Many Irish immigrants arrived in New Orleans in the 1800s, having fled from Ireland because of the potato famine. They brought with them the Jig, which was quickly imitated and incorporated into dances by the Afro-American people. The development of American Tap dancing probably stems from this time. A famous dancer of this time was William Henry Lane (also known as Master Juba). It was said that he could perform more than 15 taps in a second!

A summary - The early years of Dance in America:
As dance evolved, the Afro-American style became more formal and diluted, and the British-European style became more fluid and rhythmic.

European dances in the 1800s
  • The Waltz: The waltz developed in Europe, and then spread to America. It was scandalous at first because it was the first court dance to allow a couple to hold each other face-to-face! (Peasant dances had been performed this way for years.) It is performed in � time.
  • The Polka: This is a Bohemian (now Czechoslovakia) folk dance and became very popular as a ballroom dance. It is performed in couples and is energetic, lively and uses a syncopated rhythm where a half beat is accented with a hop.
  • Quadrille. This is a square dance for four couples, which emerged in the Napoleonic years in France.
  • Mazurka: An adapted folk dance for four couples from the 1830s, which is performed with grace and energy.
  • Minuet: A dance from the royal courts of Europe. It used to be a carefree and lively dance until the French court presented it in 1650. There it developed into a slow, graceful and stately dance.
African dances and movements in the 1800s
  • The Cake Walk: Originally the Chalk Line Walk, it involved slaves performing a combination of traditional African steps and exaggerated dance moves from the polka and marches. Couples lined up in a circle formation and danced forward using short hopping steps and high kicking steps in a syncopated rhythm. Plantation owners would judge them and the best couple would receive slices of hoecake as a prize. The 'Cake Walk' later became very popular in ballroom contests. It was the first dance to 'cross over' from black to white society and the high kicking strut step was adopted by marching bands. Rag Time music evolved from this dance.
  • The Buzzard Lope: A narrative dance where the dancer imitates a buzzard eating a dead cow. Dancers stretched out their arms like a bird and performed a step and a buzzard-like hop.
  • The Eagle Rock: This dance replaced the Buzzard Lope because it was considered more 'classy' and was named after the Eagle Rock Church in Kansas City. It included high arm gestures and a shuffle.
  • The Funky Butt: A movement where the dancer grinds his or her backside, "like an alligator crawling up a bank".
  • The Itch: This is a movement that was performed in many dances, and involved the dancers imitating an animal scratching itself. It developed into a sequence of placing the hands all over the body in perfect rhythm, and was combined with a variety of feet and torso movements. The Itch has been incorporated into many modern dances, such as the Lindy Hop, the Mambo, and was possibly the origin of the Macarena!
  • The Juba. This was a simplified version of the giouba, an African step dance. In Haiti it became known as the Martinique, a set dance where the men and women faced each other in 2 lines. In America it was a circle dance, with 2 dancers in the middle. It had a Call and Response structure where the dancers in the circle would begin by lifting one foot, and shuffle around in a circle. The centre dancers would copy, and then add on their own improvised moves. The result was a continuous group dance which combined the call and response pattern, dancing in a circle (anticlockwise), the Shuffle, improvisation and the rhythms of calling and clapping Patting Juba began from this dance, where the dancers developed a rhythmic routine of slapping the hands, knees, thighs and body. In Africa, drums would have been used to establish this rhythm, but drums had not been permitted on the American plantations, so body percussion was the result. Patting Juba evolved into crossing and uncrossing the hands on the knees, and became the essential element in the Charleston (1920s) and in Rock-and Roll (1950's).
  • The Ring Shout: This derived from the African Circle dance and survived by accident. The Baptist Church prohibited most African dances, especially ones where the dancers crossed their legs. Since the Ring Shout used clapping, stamping and shuffling, and no crossing of the legs, it was considered acceptable! The dancers combined walking, shuffling, heel tapping and pelvic motions derived from the Congo dance style, while moving in a circle. The shoulders remained stiff and tilted forward. Someone would be pushed into the centre of the circle, who would improvise steps in the middle, then rejoin the circle. (Similar to the Break dance battles of the 1980s.) Someone would accompany them on a guitar, mandolin or Jew's harp, and sing songs such as "Suzie Suzie", or "The Spider and The Bed Bug Had A Good Time"!!

There is much more to the fascinating story of Jazz. The notes above are only brief outlines and Jazz dancing has developed in many different ways since the 1800s.

Reference: Stearns, Marshall & Stearns, Jean (1994). Jazz Dance - The Story of American Vernacular Dance. New York, Da Capo Press Edition.

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