Park Hill Films, Dec 15, 2011
BIG MUCCI COMES TO MILWAUKEE TO PERFORM HIS SMASH HIT AND
DANCE THE BIKER SHUFFLE MADE ESPECIALLY FOR MILWAUKEE.
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Edited by Azizi Powell
This pancocojams post corrects the historical record about which population of Americans originated and were first to perform line dancing.
This post provides a definition of line dancing and provides some information about line dancing with a focus on its African American roots and the predominate African American cultural influence on that dance form from its inception to the present.
The content of this post is presented for historical, cultural, and educational purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to all those who are featured in these videos. Thanks also to all those who published these videos on YouTube.
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This is part of an ongoing pancocojams series on African American line dancing.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2022/06/african-american-soul-line-dancing-with.html for a 2022 pancocojams post entitled "African American (Soul) Line Dancing With Folding Fans ("Popping Fans")"
Also, click the tags below for other pancocojams posts on line dancing.
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WHAT IS LINE DANCING?
Pancocojams Editor's Note:
By "African American line dancing" I mean choreographed dances to recorded Soul, R&B, Hip Hop (and less often Gospel) music that are performed by a group of people while they stand in one or more horizontal lines or rows.
Another referent for "African American line dancing" is "Soul line dancing". Most the people performing African American (Soul) line dancing are African Americans. However, African American (Soul) line dancing can be performed by people of any race or ethnicity.
Although most line dancers are adults, line dancing is also performed by children, pre-teens, and teenagers.
Also, while line dancers perform fixed dance steps, they are free to interpret those steps their own way. Some line dancers are known for adding their own "flavor" to their performance of those steps while still maintaining the basic pattern of that dance choreography.
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From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_dance
"A line dance is a choreographed dance in which a group of
people dance along to a repeating sequence of steps while arranged in one or
more lines or rows*."
-snip-
*It's important to add that these rows (or lines) are horizontal and not vertical.
Usually, a "caller" is in the center of the first row of dancers. The caller performs the dance steps or moves while calling out those steps and moves. In some line dances, the leader of the group who is in the center of the first line relies on the caller (who is usually a man) to tell the dancers what steps to do. In those cases, the group leader may silently emphasize what the caller in the record says, for instance, by pointing to the left or pointing to the right when the caller says those directions.
Here are two other quotes about how line dancing is performed
From https://locomag.com/history-of-line-dancing/ "he history of line dancing, by Sarah A, December 19, 2016
"Line dance is self explanatory at best. Essentially, a bunch of people get into one or more lines and perform a dance. The dance is usually a form of popular dance and is always choreographed. Line dancers perform the dance repeatedly and simultaneously until the song is over. Repetition of a sequence is a key aspect of line dance. Additionally, “walls,” are also key indicators of line dance.
“Wall”
In line dance, walls and repetition go hand and hand. Once a dance’s choreographed sequence is completed, dancers will then turn to a new wall (usually counterclockwise) and repeat the sequence. This pattern of rotation and repetition will occur until dancers have made one full revolution, or have returned to the original wall in which they begun dancing. The number of walls can vary from line dance to line dance. Some dances are strictly two-wall dances, meaning the dancers will perform the sequence facing one direction and then rotate 180 degrees and perform it in the exact opposite direction. In four-wall dances—-which are the most common type of line dance—-performers will rotate four times (90 degrees counterclockwise after every one sequence). Given there are only four cardinal directions, line dances will never exceed a fourth wall. Though rare, some dances only face one wall"...
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From https://www.howcast.com/videos/497845-what-is-basic-pattern-structure-line-dancing, "What is Basic Pattern Structure Line Dancing, published by Howcast, Dec. 1, 2011
..."Basic pattern structure of the line dance starts on a wall whatever a wall you're facing. So everybody is facing the same wall.
Somewhere on the way you're going to, probably, move right, move left, move forward , move back, everything else... until you hit a new wall. Most line dancers do a quarter of a turn, and most of them to the left. So you do a quarter of a turn to your left and than you'll start a new wall. So as you're watching a line dance, you build the ability to watch it, watch it, watch it ... and when they face a new wall and do a step, you recognize that you've just seen it a minute ago, you can probably take a good guess that that's the new wall in a dance is starting over."...
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THE HISTORY OF THE MADISON- THE FIRST LINE DANCE
Excerpt #1
From http://www.columbusmusichistory.com/html/madison_1.html
From The Ohio Sentinel
"Madison Dance Started In Columbus"
By Lucius E. Lee, June 18, 1960
"From In all probability, the Madison had its start at the LVA Club in Columbus [Ohio] sometime in late 1957. The incidents fall in line like this.
William (Bubbles) Holloway, LVA mentor, was with Sonny Payne and Larry Steele in front of the Birdland in N. York. Bubbles asked Larry how to get to Madison Avenue from the Birdland and he answered: “Take it to the left, young man, take it to the left.”
That remark laid the groundwork for the Madison dance which starts on the left foot, the only dance that does so, and Madison Avenue’s direction from Birdland down Broadway is to the left.When Bubbles returned to Columbus the Birdland was the craze but that phrase, “take it to the left,” stuck with him. He got Wallace Jones, Eugene Green, Deanna Ely and Carla Singer together with other members of the LVA and, borrowing a step or two from the Birdland, put out a new dance and dubbed it “The Madison.”
Up at the now defunct Downbeat Club, a Nancy Thompson had notions about the same dance but figured it to be a jitterbug version of the Birdland. She trained members of the Downbeat and popularity of the dance spread throughout other clubs.
Its popularity swept the city so the members of Arthur Murray Dance Studio visited the LVA to learn how it was done. The same group visited the downbeat and taught the Cha Cha in exchange for lessons in the Madison.
A group of mail clerks continued to work on the dance at the LVA and organized a team. One member became so enthused that he declared that if the new child in his family turned out to be a boy, he would name him Madison. There is a crumb-crusher with a given name of Madison in the Wallace Jones family now, just about a year and a half old.
According to the incidents, Bubbles is unquestionably creator of the Madison and that makes it a Columbus dance. Be that as it may, there is no doubt he did most to popularize the dance.
He and his team journeyed to Atlantic City shortly after and showed the audience and cast of that fabulous production of Larry Steele, “Smart Affairs,” at Club Harlem how to do the dance. They first danced it for the cast and, just that quick, everyone in the audience was doing the Madison.
Around mid-August of 1959 the team took on a professional role and showed three days at Bubbs Grill in Cleveland. The Madison took on international flavor when Count Basie visited the LVA in Columbus last year and adopted the dance as a feature of his entertainment when he played London and the continent. That is how it got London press notices....
The dance reached its peak of popularity with Columbus folks about a year ago this spring. Madison contests sprang up in all the clubs but the outstanding contest was promoted by the Merry Makers club at Valley Dale which drew the largest crowd ever assembled at the Dale. The contest was won by the 502 Club team. The LVA team, which had really set the basic form for the dance, came in second."...
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The "Birdland" was a type of jitterbug partner (couple) dance. Line dancing is a group dance with no partners and no physical touching of any other dancers. Click https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw78ZcYl-3U for a 2011 YouTube video of The Birdland performed in Washington D.C,.
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Excerpt #2
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison_Time
"The Madison is a novelty dance that was popular in the late 1950s to mid-1960s.
Description and history
It was created and first danced in Columbus, Ohio, in 1957.[1] The local popularity of the dance and record in Baltimore, Maryland, came to the attention of the producers of The Buddy Deane Show in 1960. Picked up by dance shows across the country, it became widely popular.[2]
The Madison is a line dance that features a regular back-and-forth pattern interspersed with called steps. Its popularity inspired dance teams and competitions, as well as various recordings, and today it is still sometimes performed as a nostalgic dance. The Madison is featured in the John Waters movie Hairspray, and it continues to be performed in the Broadway musical Hairspray. Both the film and the musical feature one of many songs released during the Madison "craze" in the US.
Ray Bryant recorded "Madison Time" for Columbia Records in 1959.[3] Billboard stated that "The footwork for the Madison dance is carefully and clearly diagrammed for the terpers* ."[4] The Ray Bryant version was the version featured in the film Hairspray. The other popular version was by Al Brown & The Tunetoppers....
The Madison basic, danced in the film Hairspray, is as follows:
1.Step left forward
2.Place right beside left (no weight) and clap
3.Step back on right
4.Move left foot back and across the right
5.Move left foot to the left
6.Move left foot back and across the right
Called steps included the Double Cross, the Cleveland Box, The Basketball (with Wilt Chamberlain), the Big "M", the "T" Time, the Jackie Gleason, the Birdland, and The Rifleman. "The Jackie Gleason" is based on a tap dance movement known as "Shuffle Off to Buffalo".[7] Additional called sequences are: Two Up and Two Back, Big Boss Cross in Front, Make a "T", the Box, Cuddle Me, and Flying High. "Away We Go" may be the same as "The Jackie Gleason"."
-snip-
"terpers" is probably a typo for the word "steppers"
I don't think that contemporary African American line dances have names for their called steps like the names that were given in that article has being called out in The Madison line dance.
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CORRECTING THE RECORD ABOUT THE HISTORY AND CORRECT PERFORMANCES OF LINE DANCING
Wikipedia and many other online pages about line dancing emphasize White American examples of those dances and fail to credit African Americans as the original creators of that dance form. In addition, those pages highlight White Americans examples of line dancing as how who, how, and where line dancing is performed rather than indicating that African Americans have always been and continue to be the predominate initiators of and inspiration for line dancing. Furthermore, the way that Black Americans line dance is often quite different from the way that non-Black Americans line dance. Furthermore, some line dances that are popular among White Americans aren't done by Black Americans, but line dances that are popular among Black Americans are often also popular among White Americans.
Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia page on line dancing that serves as an example of how the emphasis is placed on White Americans when the history of that form of dancing is provided:
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_dance
..."History
It is likely that at least some of the steps and terminology used in modern line dancing originated from the dances brought to North America by European immigrants in the 1800s.[2][3] Throughout the 1860s–1890s, the style that would later be known as country–western dance began to emerge from these dances. Schools in the United States began to incorporate dancing, particularly folk dancing, into physical education classes in the 1900s, which popularized folk and country dancing as a social activity. Finally, servicemen returning from World War I and World War II sometimes brought European dances back to the United States, incorporating elements into American dance styles.[2]
1950s–1970s: development of style
One of the first true line dances was the Madison, a novelty
dance created and first danced in Columbus, Ohio, in 1957.[4] The local
popularity of the dance and record in Baltimore, Maryland, came to the
attention of the producers of The Buddy Deane Show in 1960, which led to other
dance shows picking it up.[5] "...
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Here's my reaction to that Wikipedia excerpt:
1. While that Wikipedia page includes the information that "Schools in the United States began to incorporate dancing, particularly folk dancing, into physical education classes in the 1900s, which popularized folk and country dancing as a social activity", it doesn't include the fact that Black Americans were the first to introduce and perform "calls" (step instructions) for square dancing. The use of callers has long been an integral part of most square dancing (and most round dancing).African Americans rarely get a shout out for creating this important element of those dance forms. I maintain that the use of callers for line dancing in some line dance records and/or by a designated dancer while the line dance is being performed is an evolution of the use of callers for square dancing.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2017/05/square-dance-caller-researcher-phil.html for Part I of a three part pancocojams series. That post entitled "Square Dance Caller & Researcher Phil Jamison's YouTube Interview: African Influences On American Square Dance" (with transcription)"
Notice that the title of that video interview is "African Influences On American Square Dancing" instead of "African American Influences.." The emphasis on "African influences" may be because in this interview Phil Jamisons indicates that the banjo, improvisational dancing, call and response, and imitative bird dances are central to African traditions. Also in this interview, and, presumably in his book which I've not read yet, Phil Jamison references Black fiddlers playing and calling quadrilles and other country dances in the Caribbean and not just in the American South and in other regions of the United States.
**
2. Although that Wikipedia page refers to the Madison as "one of the first true line dances, it doesn't provide the information that the Madison was created and first danced by Black Americans. Also, that Wikipedia page doesn't include any mention what so ever about the Jazz (Jitterbug/Birdland) roots of the Madison.
The origins of country music and Western (meaning "cowboy") music weren't White, or weren't all White" and there continues to be a few Black Americans who record and play Country music or Country and Western music. However, Country and Western music and Country and Western dancing are largely considered to be White American forms of music and dancing, . Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2024/02/did-black-people-create-american.html for the pancocojams post entitled "Did Black Americans Create The American Country Music Genre? (Update Of 2022 Post)."
Here's an excerpt from the transcript for that video of that was I quoted in that pancocojams post: [This is from my unofficial transcription of that video.]
From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1YftHGq6Xs "Phil Jamison 2 - African influences on American square dance", published by Square Dance Interviews, May 17, 2016
Phil Jamison discusses his research into the origins of
American square dance in the south, and describes the key role that
African-American musicians played . There are the well-known musical
elements—the role of the banjo, for example—and Phil also points out that the
first callers were African-American. Even some distinctive square dance
features such as Birdie in the Cage may have African roots.
Recorded November 18, 2011, at the Dare To Be Square dance weekend,
..."If you look at the Southern, Southern music, we have-the main instruments, were fiddle, of Northern European, ah, brought it over. Ah but then [there’s the] African derived banjo. And the combination of the banjo, the African banjo with the European fiddle is really what made the music distinctive. And I see a similar thing with the dances and that I believe that the first dance callers were African American and that dance calling comes from African tradition. Ah, there’s a very strong tradition in African of call and response and ah all, you know, back as early as 1690, slaves were playing fiddles for white people’s dances ah before you had um ah, ah obviously before you had ah recorded music. To be ah un, to be a musician was a ah a service position and if- surely White people were playing fiddles, but slaves realized that if you knew how to play the fiddle, you wouldn’t be working in the field, but you would be playing for the dances in the big house. And not just slaves but free blacks played fiddles too, And you were in a, in a different strata.
There’s hundreds of instances that I could cite of slave fiddlers and free blacks playing the music for white people’s dances. And-think of it like this, if you’re ah un, if you’re going to have, if you are just going to have a dance in your house for your family and friends, you might play the fiddle, your music yourself. Um just like if you’re going to, ah have friends over for supper, you might cook the meal yourself. But say it’s a bigger event, like, ah ah wedding- you hire a caterer. You have somebody else do the cooking. And the same thing if it’s a public dance, or in the South, plantation balls, so obviously, the musicians were invariably black. And this is true for two hundred years. And these black musicians, ah, learned the European dance tunes so that they could play the European ah fiddle. Ah and, you know, many many slave advertisements, you know “Slave for sale, plays the fiddle really well” , ah, notes of runaway slaves “plays the fiddle”- you’d see those all the time. And ah, dancing masters owned slaves. They didn’t have a boom box- they had a slave who could provide the music for their dancing schools. And as early as the seventeen hundreds, there are references to slaves in the South doing country dances and cotillions. And the slaves didn’t go to dancing school to learn those things. And the only way they could have done them is for somebody to be prompting them.
The white people did not have-I mean I’m sure that the dancing masters may have prompting their students in the dancing school, but at a public dance, it wasn’t something you did. You learned the figures at dancing school and then you went to the ball. And ah, the very first documented dance callers were all African American musicians. The earliest I know about is about 1819 in New Orleans and ah the architect Latrobe was down there. He went to a dance and he said “This annoying musician up here is calling out the figures to the quadrilles. This is just not right. “ And within a few years, in the 1820s there are other references as far North as New York state and other places in the South ah where the references to black fiddlers who were calling out the dance figures at public dances. By the 1840s, 50s there were white people doing it too. And by mid century, dance manuals are giving instruction on how to prompt quadrilles. And the dancing masters of course didn’t like it because it’s going to put them out of business. Once, once you could call the dances, dancers didn’t have to go to school anymore. And it let the dances pass, you know, just out into the countryside and they could be spread through the folk tradition. You didn’t have to have the dancing masters.
And so, what this did was to, it, it made the dances more impromptu, improvisational- which is an African dance, music and dance tradition. And it really separated them from the European tradition. And to me the, the dance calling which is African American, is the single biggest ingredient that separated, you know, made this an American dance form as opposed to a European dance form.
... The thing about the Black square dance calling, I know, just ah, I should say, ah, this is what I say the evidence suggests, and you know, I have no proof, but um, it, cert- I’ve done a lot of research and this is certainly what it looks like. And if someone can find an example of a white caller that precedes these black callers, I’d love to hear about it, but I, I haven’t seen it yet. You know, surely the dancing masters prompted their students, but that’s different than calling out figures, spontaneously at a dance."...
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There are lots of differences between square dancing and late 1950s to this date line dancing. African Americans originated square dance calling and African Americans originated line dancing one form* of which includes a caller instructing dancers which steps to do (on the record and/or sometimes in person while doing that dance. However, the main difference between square dance calling and line dance calling is that square dance calling started out as improvisation with the steps for a particular dance becoming fixed at some point in time. However, the calls for line dancing are always fixed within that specific version of that dance.
*Line dances are always performed to recorded music. There are two forms of line dance records:
1.instructional line dance records
These are records that are specifically made for line dancing. All or almost all of the words in those records consists of a caller (usually a man) instructing dances what steps/moves to do.
Two examples of instructional line dance records are
DJ Casper's "Cha Cha Slide Part 2" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI64R1bjN7U
and
Cupid's Cupid Shuffle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h24_zoqu4_Q .
**
2. non-instructional line dance records
These are secular (or much less often Gospel) records that have a beat that fits the usual beat for line dancing. These records may be instrumental or may include singing or rapping. However, the singing and rapping records that are used for line dancing don't include have any calls (dance instructions). Instead, people (who are usually line dancers) choreographs (make up) a line dance routine for that record and then usually publish a video of that line dance routine online.
Those line dance routines often include some dance steps that were done in the official YouTube video of that record, and/or that choreography usually includes some references to the lyrics of that song.
YouTube usually has multiple versions of competing choreographies for non-instructional line dance records, but one version eventually is considered to be the de facto "offiical" way of doing that dance, because of its popularity among line dancers and, perhaps also, because the singer or musician who recorded that record endorses that particular version of that line dance routine.
Two examples of non-instructional line dance records are
The Detroit Shuffle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wruvlpMHT7s [This is an instrumental record.]
and
Tamia Line Dance "Can't Get Enough" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9HRyzdlQCk
As of Feb. 29, 2024, there's no de facto "official" way of doing Beyonce's "Texas Hold 'Em"
dance.
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