Introduction Origins of Black Dance The Minstrel Shows Dance in Musicals  Harlem Renaissance Florence Mills Buddy Bradley Black American Dance  Black American Dance Companies Black British Dance  British Dance Companies

Jim Crow

Some of the first black dancers to tour to England were the black minstrel performers from the USA. Records show them appearing at Vauxhall Gardens and in London theatres from the mid-19th century. Black minstrel Billy Kersands performed for Queen Victoria, who was said to have much admired him.

The first minstrel performers in the USA were white performers, who smeared their faces in burnt cork and danced and sang in imitation of black people. The dance they performed most widely was a mixture of an African ring dance and an Irish jig. Two stereotyped minstrels developed – the Clown and the Dandy. These comic caricatures ridiculed black people, but black performers too began to black up as minstrels.

The Real Jim Crow

Famous black minstrels who performed in Britain included the Bohee Brothers, Billy Kersands and Juba. Billy Kersands specialised in the soft shoe dance and another dance called the Buck and Wing. His comic talent lay in the fact that he was a huge man yet danced with an extremely light step. The Bohee Brothers, who also danced the soft shoe dance, played the banjo at the same time. They were said to have taught the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) how to play the banjo.

Juba

Master Juba

Master Juba alias William Henry Lane, was born in Rhode Island, USA. He made his name in the clubs and music halls of Manhattan in the 1840s where he was nicknamed the ‘King of all Dancers’. Charles Dickens, visiting New York in the 1840s, attended a performance of Juba’s and wrote afterwards that Juba was ‘the wit of the assembly and the greatest dancer ever known’.

He was famous for dancing the jig and toured to London in 1848 with Pell’s Ethiopian Serenaders. He appeared at Vauxhall Gardens on 1st July, 1848 in an evening’s entertainment that also included Tom Barry the clown who sailed down the river Thames in a wash tub drawn by four geese. Juba died in London in 1852. The name Juba comes from a dance derived from Africa via the West Indies. The dance is very rhythmical, using lots of stamping and clapping.

Listen to a review of Juba at Vauxhall Gardens. [Download]

Read a review of Juba at Vauxhall Gardens 1st July 1848