Native American Dance Early American Social Dance and Its … · 2019-01-19 · and minium [two...
Transcript of Native American Dance Early American Social Dance and Its … · 2019-01-19 · and minium [two...
Topics for Today’s Class
•Native American Dance
•Early American Social Dance and Its Sources
– Opposition to Dance in Early America
One of the earliest dance paintings, by John White, circa 1585. Indians of the Roanoke region.
One of the earliest dance paintings, by John White, circa 1585. Indians of the Roanoke region.
Account from Cabeza de Vaca (16th century Spanish conquistador) of the Cuchendados, near the Rio Grande
• The Indians, men and women, leaped and caprioled, unretarded by their earthly ballast. With their faces painted with red ochre and minium [two reddening agents] , they circled about the fire, to the rhythmic scraping of grooved sticks. They kept their feet together, their elbows out, their shoulders hunched, and thus, they hopped round and round. Belly to rump, for the space of six hours, without ever ceasing their circular progress or their lamentable cries.
• Ensemble (rather than solo) dances
• Rhythm produced not only by drums, but also:
– Rattles
– Bells attached to clothing
• Movements are highly symbolic
• Dance space – a circle
• Not acrobatic: dancers stay close to the ground
• Small steps
• Dances are often endurance tests
• Largest movements in torso and head
• Musical accompaniment is largely vocal and monophonic
• Hunting
• Fishing
• Planting
• Harvesting
• Preparing Food
• Warfare
Contemporary Native American Dance: A malleable tradition
• War Mothers and Women’s dances
• Tiny Tots Wardance
The simplest way to keep the fires strong is to keep within the sound of the drums. –Ron Harris
Colonial Dances of America - Their European Roots
• Menuet (Minuet) and Quadrille from France
• Country Dances from England
• Hornpipes, Jigs and Reels from Scotland &
Ireland
Opposition to Dance
"A Dance is the Devil’s Procession. He that enters into a Dance, enters into his Possession. The Devil is the Guide, the middle and the end of the Dance.”— Increase Mather, An Arrow Against Profane and Promiscuous Dancing Drawn Out of the Quiver of the Scriptures (1684).
Maypole Dancing
Puritans did not condemn all forms of dance, but Maypole dancing was seen as sinful, “a stynching idol” around which pagans worshipped.
Not Against All Forms of Dance
• “Dancing or Leaping is a natural expression of joy: so that there is no more Sin in it, than in laugther, or any outward expression of inward Rejoycing.” (Increase Mather)
• His quarrel was with “Gynecansrical or Mixt Dancing”
• Why? Incentive to break the 7th Commandment.
COLONIAL DANCES
The dance floor was the place where a person’s command of the attributes of gentility: costume, manners, movement, grace and ease, were put to the ultimate and most public test.
• French officers who had seen George Washington dance at a ball remarked that his dancing could not have been improved by a Parisian education.” (Keller 14)
• A History of Social Dance in America
• Library of Congress Dance Memory Website
French Court Dances
The Minuet
The Quadrille Louis XIV – the Sun King
• Irish Jigs and Reels (combined rhythmic taps and shuffles to create a lively and dynamic dance which showed up on opera stages and in more commonplace spots, such as taverns.)
English Country Dancing
(1650-1850) (p. 61 I See America Dancing)
• More democratic
– Couples took turns
leading figures
– Symmetrical tracks
• Less complex
– Fewer figures
– Fewer steps
Only in a culture where the absolute power of
the king had been tempered by the demands of
a democracy could such a dance flourish.
(Needham)
It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind; but when a beginning is made – when the felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt – it must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more.” (Emma, Jane Austen)
Bath Assembly House built expressly for the kinds of dancing done in Austen’s
day
English Country Dance Figures
Dance: Upon a Summer's Day
Nashville Country Dancers Playford Ball
Scene from « Pride and Prejudice »
John Playford
• 1623-86
• Music publisher
• Book seller
• Choral director at St Paul’s Cathedral
• Published multiple editions of the English Dancing Master, beginning in 1651
Escaping the Difficulties of 17th Century
Life in England through Dance
• King Charles Under arrest & soon to be beheaded
• Dissenters held power
• Upper class losing power
• Political unrest
• Outbreaks of Plague
• Great Fires
Dance Titles
• Newcastle
• Upon A Summer’s Day
• The Spaniard
• Dover Pier
• The Dressed Ship
• A la Mode de France
• Drive the Cold Winter Away
• Juice of Barley
• Jamaica
Between 1700-1830, 25,000
dances were published in books
in England. Doesn’t include
those published in Ireland,
Scotland, Holland and Spain.
Between 1730-1810, 2,800
home-grown dances published
in America
Works Cited and Consulted • Ellis, Clyde. "We Don't Want Your Rations, We Want This Dance":
The Changing Use of Song and Dance on the Southern Plains The Western Historical Quarterly Vol. 30, No. 2 (Summer, 1999), pp. 133-154
• Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary, 1857
• Marks III, Joseph E. America Learns to Dance. A Historical Study of Dance Education in America before 1900. New York: Dance Horizons, 1957.
• Needham, Maureen. I See American Dancing Published by University of Illinois Press, 2002
• Van Winkle Keller, Kate. Dance and its Music in America, 1528-1789 Pendragon Press, 2007.
• ------. George Washington. A Biography in Social Dance. Hendrickson Group, 1998.
• “Waltz” Grove On Line Music Dictionary. http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/public/book/omo_gmo