Two US musicals to visit the UK at the end of the 19th century
were to spark a craze for the popular dance, the Cakewalk.
The Creole Show
The Creole Show was the first all black musical and
had premiered in New York in 1889. The show starred 16 black women
as chorus girls. The black leads were Dora Dean and Charles Johnson
who performed the dance, the Cakewalk, as the finale.
The dance came from the mocking dance created by slaves in the
West Indies to imitate the way that white people danced. In the
Cakewalk the upper body was stiff but the legs were fluid.
It was danced to Ragtime music made popular by
Scott Joplin. The syncopated rhythms of Ragtime music developed from the rhythms
of West African drumming.
The musical In Dahomey came to London in 1903 from
New York. It played at the Shaftesbury Theatre and featured the
comic duo of writers Bert Williams and George Walker. In Dahomey
was a huge success in London, and the Cakewalk and Buck
and Wing dances featured in the production became the latest
dance hall crazes in the UK.
African American composer and pianist known as 'the King of Ragtime'. His best known rags, 'The Entertainer' and 'Maple Leaf Rag' made him famous but he died in poverty. Serious recognition came after 'The Entertainer' was featured in the Oscar-winning score of The Sting in 1973 and the production in 1976 of his opera Treemonisha, which won a Pulitzer Prize.
Introduction
Harlem Renaissance
