Josephine Baker was an iconic African-American dancer, singer, actress and civil rights activist. Her rise to fame included her erotic dancing, her comedic expressions and her risqué sense of style. She was well known for her “Danse Sauvage” and her most famous “Banana skirt dance”. She was a unique artist that differed from the rest. With that being said, I would like to focus the main aspect of this paper on her originality of tackling racial stereotypes through performing, her unique sense of style as a world-famous entertainer, and most importantly her evolutionary “banana skirt dance”. To begin with, Josephine Baker’s rise to fame began in 1925 as a dancer, when she moved from the United States to Paris, France where she performed in La Revue Nègre at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. She was an immediate sensation, because of her erotic dancing and sense of style. More particularly, Josephine Baker and her dance partner Joe Alex performed the “Danse Sauvage” which is a French saying for “wild dance”. This dance performance was only the beginning of her long, successful career as a performer. Josephine Baker’s dance form was different from many other African American artists during that time era, which is why she was so heavily adored. On stage Josephine baker would dress in over-the-top outfits, most of which bared her almost nude. During the Danse Sauvage, Josephine baker dawned only a small feather skirt, which made her sense of style risqué, yet loved by many French
Influenced primarily by cultural roots and incredibly opportunity, Dunham had the luxury of studying in the West Indies as well as anthropological study of other cultural style dances. The West Indian experience changed forever the focus of Dunham’s life and caused a profound shift in her career. This initial fieldwork began a lifelong involvement with the people and dance of Haiti. And, importantly for the development of modern dance, her fieldwork began her investigations into a vocabulary of movement that would form the core of the Katherine Dunham Technique. Though many of Dunham’s primary influences lies within her multicultural experiences, Mark Turbyfill also seemed to play a large role in her future dance career, giving her private lessons despite his doubt in the opening of her student company (Kaiso! 187). Katherine Dunham has been list as an influence to “everyone from George Balanchine to Jerome Robbins, Alvin Ailey, Bob Fosse and Twyla Tharp. American dance, including ballet, modern dance, Hollywood and Broadway, would not be the same without her” (Aschenbrenner 226).
In “Stripping the Emperor: The Africanist Presence in American Concert Dance”, Gottschild begins by introducing unique aspects of the Africanist aesthetic including how it embraces differences and instead of the tradition European idea of resolving conflict, Africanist aesthetic presents a question and demonstrates the beauty in accepting conflict. One way in which the Africanist aesthetic differs from European ballet is how they utilize polycentrism, having multiple centers of movement, and polyrhythm, when different body parts keep multiple rhythms. Other ways include the high-affect juxtaposition, changes in mood, movement, or tempo, to the drastically contrasting sharpness and intensity in the movements. Gottschild’s main point in
In the movie “hair spray” the choreographer and director do a great job explaining not only the history of dance but also a main historic fact. With the classic musical- style story the director is able to introduce a part of history in a fun exciting way through dance and music. The story tells us many different things as well as shows us how dance can bring people from different ethnicities and color together. We can deeply connect with the story if we can understand and experience with story line. The story begins with a girl by the name of “Tracy” who is crazy about singing and dancing the, “new groove”. She is different then the rest in many ways but pursues her dream as a dancer without allowing anything to stop her. She shows her enthusiasm for dancing and singing from the beginning of the movie to the end. The story shows us a part of the 60s when segregation was in place. Whites and people of color where not often seen together. They were unable to live in the same neighborhoods or share the same friends, stores, and buses. At this time in history dance was very
After giving a brief introduction to her subject, Desmond quickly begins her analysis on the piece Radha choreographed by Ruth St. Denis. She states that St. Denis was one of the mothers of modern dance in America despite how her works are not as well remembered as others including Martha Graham’s. She depicts Radha by describing the dancing quality, patterns in choreography, lighting, set, and costume in detail. Desmond also recounts the social issues that are reflected in the piece including gender roles and race. The author’s main point in writing “Dancing Out the Difference: Cultural Imperialism and Ruth St. Denis’s Radha of 1906” was to introduce St. Denis and share her detailed analysis of St. Denis’ Radha.
The light shine down and the music surrounds her as she dance into the air and across the stage. The audience yells and clap for her as the curtain close. It’s the end of another work week for Jane Onwuegbuchu. Jane comes from a very huge family of 8, where it’s very hard for her to be at the center of attention, especially being the 5th child. Jane was born in Houston, Texas on June 22, 1987 to Rosaline and James Onwuegbuchu. She started dancing at the young age of 3 with Elite dancers and fell in love with dancing since then. “Growing up as a child, Jane was a very good child, she loved dancing and just seeing her dance melt my heart. She was a part of a lot of dance organization, church, youth dance team etc… You name it and she was there,”
Although many dancers (sometimes referred to as “strippers”) of Gypsy Rose Lee’s era attempted various gimmicks to stand out and make a name for themselves, no one could quite compare to the charisma and character that illuminated the stage of Gypsy Rose Lee. American writer H.L. Mencken even coined the term “ecdysiast” just for Gypsy, which he felt was a more dignified way of referring to Gypsy in her profession. Gypsy may be an icon to many, even inspiring a musical based on her memoirs titled Gypsy: A Musical Fable., but she is also a woman who is much greater than the performer known on stage.
While the speaker has succeeded in providing an enhanced image of the performer, the act of assigning meaning to the performance and the representation used holds the capacity to limit the experience. As the speaker continues to reconfigure her strip tease into a “[graceful] and calm” artistic dance, he makes a simultaneous attempt to distance himself from the crowd, making no mention of his gender or race directly (5). However, the speaker’s attempt to portray the dancer from objective eyes falters as his
As ballets were about telling stories or formulating movements, modern dance broke the rules and started to focus more on individual expressions. Loie Fuller (1862 – 1928), Doris Humphrey (1895-1958), and Ruth St. Denis (1877-1968) were pioneering women who took a stand and used their dance performance to speak up for women’s rights. Using dance, they significantly contributed to the Feminist movement in which they embraced self-expression and creativity so that women could be acknowledged in the dance field and in the society as a whole. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, they found for women’s rights by “taking dance to a new form, and creating dances to speak directly and intimately to the viewer” (Au 89). Loie Fuller, Doris Humphrey, and Ruth St. Denis demonstrated the transformation of dance with their innovation of costumes and stage lighting, incorporation of foreign cultures into performance, and creation of natural movements and individual expression that rejected the formal structures of ballet to deform a woman’s body, allowing women to be free from stereotype of a traditional woman.
Josephine baker born in st.Louis missouri. In 1926 baker was an amazing dancer that lead her to be an creative in her outfits. In 1936 baker became a massive help during the french resistance. She was a clever dancer that in 1925 he began dancing in paris and in the united states. Years later in her career she adopted she 12 children. She always supported the civil rights movement. This is the life of josephine baker.
In “Stripping the Emperor: The Africanist Presence in American Concert Dance”, Gottschild begins by introducing unique aspects of the Africanist aesthetic including how it embraces differences and instead of the traditional European idea of resolving conflict, Africanist aesthetic presents a question and demonstrates the beauty in accepting conflict. One way in which the Africanist aesthetic differs from European ballet is how they utilize polycentrism, having multiple centers of movement, and polyrhythm, when different body parts keep multiple rhythms. Other ways include the high-affect juxtaposition, changes in mood, movement, or tempo, to the drastically contrasting sharpness and intensity in the movements. Gottschild’s main point in her article is to describe how the Africanist aesthetic is much less strict
Josephine Baker reached the height of her fame during the 1920s, however, she still was not able to speak about her work and explain what her performances were trying to convey. This left the audience to decipher the performances for themselves, while doing so this highlighted the racism that was still apparent in France. In Phyllis Rose’s book ‘Jazz Cleopatra: Josephine Baker in Her Time’ She shows quotes from the tabloids saying, “We can’t find a way to tie the scenes together, but everything we’ve ever read flashes across our enchanted minds...glimpses of enormous steamboats swallowing clusters of Negros who carry rich burdens”. (Rose, 1991) The Parisians visiting Bakers show at the Revue Negre interpreted her show based on what they understood Africa to be. Baker was able to make a lasting impact with her unique look and style and was able to entertain crowds with her “rubber legs” (Rose, 1991) and “crossed eyes” (Rose, 1991) during a time in which racism was the norm. While “she did not exercise complete control over her own image” (Jules-Rosette 2007) she used the stage as a way of expressing herself which she could not do with her voice. In doing so Baker has influenced many performers today. Most notably she inspired Beyoncé Knowles.
Jane Desmond introduces her article, “Embodying Difference: Issues in Dance and Cultural Studies,” by describing a dance that readers can picture as the dance of tango in their minds. This helps lead to her connecting dance, or body movement, with cultural studies and social identities. In her article, Desmond focuses on connecting how dance and body movement can be portrayed differently in social identities, such as race, class, gender, nationality, and sexuality.
She debut her own experience to try and gain more followers in the interest in arts. At first her business was successful. After their first performance and her dance company debut Melodies of Buchanan, and the dance company began to skyrocket. This dance company then had the opportunity to perform weekly on television. From there, the opportunities were growing rapidly.
The origins of jazz music and dance are found in the rhythms and movements brought to America by African slaves. The style of African dance is earthy; low, knees bent, pulsating body movements emphasized by body isolations and hand-clapping. As slaves forced into America, starting during the 1600’s, Africans from many cultures were cut off from their families, languages and
Martha Graham is one of the most highly renowned and influential artist and chorographer in Modern dance of all time. Graham has influenced Modern dance, taking styles of her own and being able to express a variety of themes with human emotion. Graham’s work strongly reflected her; she is also well known for her other choreographies such as: Appalachian Spring, Lamentation, and Night Journey, and many more.