Slow Drag (dance)

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The Slow Drag is an American social dance usually performed to blues music.

The Slow Drag, first performed in the African American community of New Orleans in the 1890s, incorporates elements of traditional African dances. Ragtime composers, including Scott Joplin, wrote a number of slow-tempo tunes appropriate for the dance. In the decades that followed, it spread throughout the American South and was most popular in semi-rural juke joints, where it was danced to the blues. The basic dance was a close-contact, improvisational two-step with a foot-dragging action marking the beats. As the night went on, it could become progressively more intimate.

In 1929, the Slow Drag became the first African American social dance to be introduced to Broadway audiences, in the play Harlem. It scandalized white critics with its raw sensuality, which was seen as a direct threat to social order. Though a form of Slow Drag entered the dominant culture, it never gained the popularity of other dances derived from African American dance forms, such as the Charleston. Because of its improvisational and semi-private nature, the Slow Drag is considered one of the most "authentic" African American social dances.

The swing revival helped renew interest in the Slow Drag, which is acknowledged as one of the many antecedents of swing dancing. Unfortunately, few films of the dance survive, and those that do were generally sanitized for popular consumption. A more modern, formalized version of the Slow Drag is taught for the benefit of contemporary blues dancers.

The Slow Drag's spirit lives on in a variety of "slow jam" dances, particularly those of the funk era.