Saturday, July 30, 2016

Alcorn State University Golden Girls - 1990 video & 1999 video (with selected comments)

Edited by Azizi Powell

This is Part III of a five part series that showcases a pre-2013 video of the majorette dance line of a Historical Black Colleges and University (HBCU) and includes selected comments from that video's discussion thread.

Part III provides information about Alcorn University's "Golden Girls" and showcases two videos* of that majorette dance squad from the 1990s.

*I'm departing from the one video criteria of this series because these videos were shot in the 1990s and are therefore quite rare.

Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/07/jackson-state-university-jsettes-loose.html for Part I of this series. That post includes links to all of the other posts in this series.

Part I focuses on Jackson State University's "Prancing J-Settes"

Part II focuses on Alabama State University's "Stingettes."

Part IV focuses on Southern University's "Dancing Dolls"
"
and

Part V focuses on Texas Southern University's "Motion of the Ocean".

Except for the majorette dance line showcased in Part I, these dance lines aren't given in any particular order. Additional HBCU dance lines will be showcased in subsequent pancocojams posts.

The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, entertainment, and aesthetic purposes.

All copyrights remain with their owners.

Thanks to members of Alcorn State University's Golden Girls now and in the past. Thanks to all those who featured in this video and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publisher of this video on YouTube.

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INFORMATION AND COMMENTS ABOUT ALCORN STATE UNIVERSITY AND ALCORN STATE UNIVERSITY GOLDEN GIRLS
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcorn_State_University
Alcorn State University (Alcorn) is a historically black comprehensive land-grant institution in Lorman, Mississippi. It was founded in 1871 by the Reconstruction-era legislature to provide higher education for freedmen...

History
Alcorn State University was founded at the former Oakland College, a school for whites established by the Presbyterian Church. Oakland College closed its doors at the beginning of the American Civil War because of the outbreak of war; most students enlisted in the military. When the college failed to reopen at the end of the war, the property was sold to the state of Mississippi. It renamed the facility as Alcorn University in 1871, in honor of James L. Alcorn, then the state's governor, and established it as a land grant institution and historically black college. [4][5]

This was the first black land grant college in the country. Congress required that states with segregated educational institutions (as was maintained in all the former Confederacy) designate black land grant colleges in order to receive land grants monies for white colleges, as Congress had authorized the program to benefit students of all races. Alcorn University started with what are recognized as three historic buildings.[6]...

Sounds of Dyn-O-mite
Alcorn State University's marching band is known as the "Sounds of Dyn-O-mite" (SOD). The band has more than 200 members and was founded in the 1960s. The "Golden Girls" (GGs) is an established dance squad that has been featured with the marching band since its inception."

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SHOWCASE VIDEOS
Example #1: Alcorn 1990 Golden Girls



redbone971, Uploaded on Feb 21, 2009

1990 edition of Alcorn Golden Girls doing their thing (this isn't my video, but I wanted to post it to show the old school GGs)

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Example #2: Alcorn State-Golden Girls 1999



MrTJ85, Uploaded on Nov 3, 2009
-snip-
Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MnUZEaHscA for another 1999 video of Southern [University Marching Band] & /Alcorn State [University Marching Band] - Marching In 1999
-snip-
DISCLAIMER: I arbitrarily chose these videos through YouTube surfing. I don't mean to imply that two videos could be representative of the entire history of this or any dance squad.

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SELECTED COMMENTS
These comments are given in relative chronological order, with the oldest dated comments given first, except for responses. However, these comments may not be in consecutive order.

In this comment section and others in this series I'm particularly interested in documenting vernacular terms that are used about j-setting such as "buck", "throw counts", "stands" (meaning "counts" and not stadium bleachers), "field shows", "tail" and "crabs".

I'm also interested in presenting comments that refer to the history of that particular HBCU majorette dance line and/or the changes that have been made in what has come to be known as "j-setting".

I've assigned numbers for referencing purposes only.

VIDEO #1
2009
1. redbone971
"I miss the old GGs. They had so much energy and such entertaining shows."

**
2. catergory3kane
"The GG"S used to own the stands and the field!"

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3. redbone971
"I loved their style and energy in the 90s. They were on it."

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2010
4. misstoussaint89
"are yall seeing what i'm seeing, "goes to look at jsette vids". get with it enough said."
-snip-
"Jsettes"= Jackson State University J-Settes

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5. catergory3kane
"And they wanna say the GGs copy the Jsettes...smh.. [form of profanity referent deleted] just don't know how it ALL started!
-snip-
"smh" shake my head (in annoyance, irritation, exasperation etc.)

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Reply
6. redbone971
"@misstoussaint89 yes these are original GG counts."

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2012
7. zndavalley
I can see they are doing things that the jsettes became famous for in their later years. seems like the gg's are the originaters of those moves

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Reply
8. rchestan
"Yea, the Golden Girls are actually the first dance squad of all HBCU's... So everyone learned from them."

**
Reply
9. redbone971
"old school people see that. It's the "new schoolers" that think the Golden Girls stole all of the J-settes move and style. Golden Girls have been dancing like this since they were created in the 60s."

**
2013
Reply
10. dee hay
"Sorry there r not , those counts are from in 85 , an i was cap. Thank u"

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2015
11. trent johnson
"What i love abt this video is that you see the quality of every dance team from the swac in one video!! Stated before, there are some moves that the JSettes took over but i really love the parts where i can see some dance moves that the Southern U. Dancing Dolls took from. The old GGs were classy and they also know how to do a little bucking haha"

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2016
catergory3kane
12. so the Jsettes stole the GGs "salt and pepper" walk? So, who's the thief..Jsettes.
-snip-
Click http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2016/07/jackson-state-university-j-settes-get.htmlto find examples of and comments about the "salt and pepper" walk (march).

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VIDEO #2
2009
1. BlackSheepp4
"those were the good days"

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2011
2. SomeLittleShoe
"Who needs to watch a pole dancer at the strip club when they have this slutty stuff at the football game!"

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3. Brandon Brown
"You can tell they had fun dancing"

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2013
4. Cameron Thomas
Hold the [profanity deleted] up these are the original golden girls u kno the ones that one the best hbcu dance line of 1999. Yeah this group outdid the j settes stinger tea dancing dolls and every other good dance lines in the south This is just one stand they did runs of more plus these are grown women let them dance how they want

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5. invadeone2o
That type dance is part of our culture, we have been brain watch
-snip-
From some of the other comments in this discussion thread, I think this commenter meant "we have been brain washed to believe that that type of dancing is nasty (too sexual).

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This concludes Part III of this series.

Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

8 comments:

  1. It just occured to me that the pelvic thrusts (bucks) that the Golden Girls and most other Historical Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU) majorette do are the same as or very similar to that type of West African dance move. "African dancing" became popular with many afrocentric African Americans in the late 1960s - probably the same time that the Alcorn State Golden Girls became known for their bucking style.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Check out the similarity of the 1999 Golden Girls bucking and the dancing performed in the early scene from the movie Coming To America that is showcased in this pancocojams post: http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/05/coming-to-america-african-dance-shes.html

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    2. Check out the similarity of the 1999 Golden Girls bucking and the dancing performed in the early scene from the movie Coming To America that is showcased in this pancocojams post: http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2014/05/coming-to-america-african-dance-shes.html

      Delete
    3. But Black folks "bucked" in the South long before the beginning of the afrocentric movement in the 1960s.

      Delete
    4. But Black folks "bucked" in the South long before the beginning of the afrocentric movement in the 1960s.

      Delete
  2. re some comments from the discussion thread for which addresses the subject of the history of jsetting:

    From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiIPvrf9KlU Stands Battle - 2015 Last Dance Team Standing

    All Things Bad, 2015
    "Did these teams start poppin up when Bring It! came about? it seems like it"

    **
    Reply
    lilhypnotique, 2015
    "Oh they did for 15 secs of fame. Ppl in their garage and back yard making teams."

    **
    Reply
    All Things Bad, 2015
    "+lilhypnotique They just do it for the stand battle smh, they need to do research on the origins of majorette and the other types."

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    Reply
    Qveen_ Renni, 2015
    "Let's just put this out there they ain't stealing nun from dd they all stealing from the j-setts. Just to clarify any confusion
    -snip_
    Based on previous comments, I believe "dd" here refers to the Jackson, Missisippi youth j-setting dance team "Dancing Dolls" who are showcased on Lifetime television series.

    **
    Reply
    TrilbyRandall, 2016
    "The dancing do take from the j-setts boo"
    -snip-
    "j-setts" = Jackson State University J-Settes

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    Reply
    youngdaughter, 2016
    "if you want to know the truth, it all started with the golden girls not jsettes....history back from the 60's.... Golden Girls are the first and was known for bucking, they use to say they were nasty before it became popular in 90s. From back then until later 90s early 2000s the jsettes did alot of kicks and walks. Jsettes started as twirlers and later became majorette in the 70s. But it's great to see everyone doing there thing, but thought I give a little history fact."

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  3. I found it when I was looking for a different sort of information but I am very interested in the article, It is nice to read such kind of good posts I like your work keep it up!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Shanaya.

      I'm glad that you found this blog.

      Best wishes!

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