"Resurrection of The Baby Dolls" is a documentary tracing the origins and transformations of the first women's street practice in the U.S. (c.1912). The film follows celebrated NOSD founder and artistic director, Millisia White with her signature Baby Doll Ladies & Company as they work to help preserve and continue the once dormant doll-masking, music and dance practice post Hurricane Katrina (2005).
Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post presents information about New Orleans, Louisiana Baby Doll masking (masquerade) history and contemporary adaptations.
This post also showcases seven videos of New Orleans' Baby Doll masking.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those past and present New Orleans Baby Doll maskers. Thanks to all those who are featured in these videos and thanks to all those who are quoted in this post. Thanks also to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.
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Trinidad and Tobago also has a Baby Doll carnival masking tradition. However, that Trinidadian and Tobagan Baby Doll character is very different from the historical and the contemporary New Orleans Baby Doll character.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2023/05/traditional-trinidad-and-tobago-baby.html for a pancocojams post on Trinidad and Tobago's Baby Doll carnival masking character.
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ARTICLE EXCERPT
From https://www.npr.org/2013/02/16/172165237/the-baby-dolls-of-mardi-gras-a-fun-tradition-with-a-serious-side "The 'Baby Dolls' Of Mardi Gras: A Fun Tradition With A Serious Side", February 16, 2013 5:16 AM ET, Heard on Weekend Edition Saturday By Tina Antolini
"The baby dolls are a group of African-American men and
women carnival maskers," says Kim Vaz, dean at Xavier University.
"They would dress up on Mardi Gras day in short satin skirts, with
bloomers, and they would have garters."
Vaz, who has written a new book about the baby dolls, says the tradition dates back to 1912, when Jim Crow was the law of the land in the South. It all started in New Orleans' red-light district, which itself was divided along racial lines. The Storyville area, where the sex industry was legal, was for white customers; black customers had to go a few blocks away where prostitution was illegal, but allowed.
[photograph caption] - This 1942 photo provided by the Louisiana State Museum shows Gold Digger Baby Dolls, one of the neighborhood groups that adopted the "baby doll" costumes.
[…]
Between these two red-light districts, there was a kind of
rivalry. One year the women in the black district heard that their counterparts
in Storyville were going to dress up for Mardi Gras; they decided they needed
to come up with some good costumes to compete.
"And they said, 'Let's just be baby dolls because that's what the men call us. They call us baby dolls, and let's be red hot,' " Vaz says.
Calling a woman "baby" had just made its way into the popular lexicon, with songs like "Pretty Baby" written by New Orleans native Tony Jackson. There was, however, something subversive about black sex workers dressing this way.
"At that time, baby dolls were very rare and very hard to get," Vaz says. "So it had all that double meaning in it because African-American women weren't considered precious and doll-like."
Just the fact that these prostitutes were masking and going
out into the street at all was a big deal. Women just did not do that then. And
as sex workers, these women were already taboo. Vaz says they just kept piling
on by appropriating males behaviors like smoking cigars and flinging money at
the men.
"If you went to touch their garter, they would hurt
you," she says.
The baby dolls carried walking sticks they would use in their dances, as well as to defend themselves. It was about fun, Vaz says, but it was a kind of laughter to keep from crying.
[…]
They came up with their own dance step they called
"walking raddy." Pretty soon, women in more "respectable"
neighborhoods started masking baby doll. But desegregation in the 1950s allowed
black New Orleanians to do more on Mardi Gras.
Then Interstate Highway 10 was built directly through the neighborhood where African-Americans gathered to celebrate carnival, disrupting many traditions. The baby dolls faded, until several years ago.
On Mardi Gras day this week, one of the highlights of the Zulu Parade was the Baby Doll Ladies. Dressed in royal blue rompers with ruffles and bows, they danced down the street to a New Orleans' style of hip hop called bounce.
The Baby Doll Ladies are the project of Millisia White, who co-curated the new exhibition with Vaz. White is a native New Orleanian and a choreographer, who had just started her own dance company in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit. After the storm, she wanted to do something involving dance that celebrated New Orleans culture.
"We weren't necessarily trying to resurrect the times of 1912 in how we dress or how we look or how we present," White says. "If anything is resurrected, it doesn't exactly come back the same because we're not a replica, we're a continuation of the baby doll practice."
White interviewed elders around New Orleans to learn about the tradition. She and her brother, who's a DJ, put together a look and a sound for the new baby dolls, and then they tested it out on Mardi Gras day 2009, four years after Katrina.
It seems history is not just in the past in New Orleans,
it's dancing down the street right next to you, maybe wearing bloomers and a
bonnet."
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There are several (New Orleans) Baby Doll masking groups in addition to the Baby Doll Ladies that are referenced in this NPR radio segment.
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #2- Mardi Gras Baby Dolls akaNew Orleans BabyDollLadies Centennial with Zulu, 2012
New Orleans Baby Doll Ladies, Feb 1, 2018
Millisia White founded the group in 2005 in the mold of a
century-old Crescent City (doll) costuming custom. In 2010 The Baby Doll Ladies began by
accompanying the Krewe Of Zulu parade, rekindling its historic neighborhood
association. In 2016 the City of New Orleans commissioned a dance-parade hosted
by The Krewe of masking Baby Doll Ladies along the historic St. Charles Avenue
route on Mardi Gras Day, preceding Zulu parade.
The Baby Doll Ladies represent a connection with the city's first
all-female marching group (ca. 1912).
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #3 - Baby Doll tradition remains a rich part of New Orleans'
culture
NOLA.com, Mar 20, 2015
Resa "Cinnamon Black" Bazile leads the Tremé
Million-Dollar Baby Dolls. She talks about the New Orleans Baby Doll tradition
and why she has been a part of it since the 1970's.
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #4 - The Baby Dolls: Preserving Culture in New Orleans
Vashni Balleste, Dec 5, 2016
As gentrification & city planning affects New Orleans, the socially conscious Baby Doll maskers reminisce on cultural beginnings and fight to protect and maintain their community and its traditions.
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SHOWCASE VIDEO # 5 Babydolls ~ 2016 Zulu Parade
Douglas Tate, Mar 16, 2017
The World-Famous Babydolls in the World-Famous Zulu Parade ~
Fat Tuesday 2/9/2016 ~ New Orleans Mardi Gras
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #6 - Millionaire Baby Dolls second line through Treme on Mardi
Gras day
WWLTV, Feb 25, 2020
It's not Mardi Gras until you see the Baby Dolls strutting
down the street!
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SHOWCASE VIDEO #7 - New Orleans Uptown Super Sunday 2023 Baby Dolls
Subject Matter Experts, March 20, 2023
Uptown Super Sunday jamming with the Baby Dolls!
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