Cakewalk

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the form of music and dance. For the musical notation program, see Cakewalk (sequencer).
For other meanings, see Cakewalk (disambiguation).
Cakewalk
Stylistic origins
Cultural origins
Typical instruments
banjo, piano, small bands
Mainstream popularity c. 1890 - 1910
Derivative forms Ragtime
Cakewalk, 1892
Cakewalk, 1892

Cakewalk is a traditional African American form of music and dance which originated among slaves in the Southern United States. The form was originally known as the chalk line walk; it takes its name from competitions slaveholders sometimes held, in which they offered slices of hoecake as prizes for the best dancers.[1] It has since evolved from a parody of ballroom dancing to a "fun fair" like dance where participants dance in a circle in the hopes of winning a free cake.

Contents

[edit] Traditional dance

The dance was invented as a satirical parody of the formal European ballroom dances preferred by white slave owners, and featured exaggerated imitations of the dance ritual, combined with traditional African dance steps.[2] One common form of cakewalk dance involved couples linked at the elbows, lining up in a circle, dancing forward alternating a series of short hopping steps with a series of very high kicking steps. Costumes worn for the cakewalk often included large, exaggerated bow ties, suits, canes, and top hats.

The Cake Walk was an adapted and amended two-step, which had been spawned by the popluarity of marches; most notably by John Philip Sousa. The Cake Walk was more fluid and imaginative than the established two-step, it was nevertheless a regularized form, more improvisational than its previous form, but highly formalized compared to later dances such as the Charleston, Black Bottom and Lindy Hop.[3]

In July 1898 the musical comedy "Clorindy The Origin of the Cakewalk" opened on Broadway in New York. Will Marion Cook wrote ragtime music for the show. Black dancers mingled with white cast members for the first instance of integration on stage in New York.[4][5] Cook wrote, "My chorus sang like Russians, dancing meanwhile like Negroes, and cakewalking like angels, black angels! When the last note was sounded, the audience stood and cheered for at least ten minutes. This was the finale which Witmark had said no one would listen to. It was pandemonium... But did that audience take offense at my rags and lack of conducting polish? Not so you could notice it!"[6][7]

Performances of the "Cake Walk", including a "Comedy Cake Walk" were filmed by the American Motoscope & Biograph Co.in 1903. Prancing steps were the main steps shown in the "Cake Walk" segment, which featured two couples, and a solo dancer. All dancers were African American.[8] 1903 was the same year that both the cakewalk and ragtime music arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Leaning far forward or far backward is associated with defiance in Kongo. "We are palm trees, bent forward, bent back, but we never break." Another interpretations of these motions were "melting" to the beat, or protecting what is new (leaning forward) with the past (leaning back). The appearance of the cakewalk in Buenos Aires may have influenced influenced early styles of tango.[9]

Dances by slaves were a popular spectator pastime for slaveholders, evolving into regular Sunday contests held for their pleasure. Following the American Civil War, the tradition continued amongst African Americans in the South and gradually moved northward. The dance became nationally popular among whites and blacks for a time at the end of the 19th century.[1] Most cakewalk music is notated in 2/4 time with two alternate heavy beats per bar, giving it an ooompah rhythm.[10] The music was adopted into the works of various white composers, including Robert Russell Bennett, John Philip Sousa and Claude Debussy. Debussy wrote Golliwog's Cakewalk as the final movement of the Children's Corner suite (1908).[11]

[edit] Modern times

The term "cakewalk" is often used to indicate something that is very easy or effortless. Though the dance itself could be physically demanding, it was generally considered a fun, recreational pastime. The phrase "takes the cake" also comes from this practice.[1]

Today, one version of the cakewalk is kept alive by traditional Scottish Highland dancers. The cakewalk is sometimes taught, performed and competed within the Highland Dance community, especially in the southern United States.[2] In addition to the Highland Dance community, a version of the cakewalk seen in vintage film clips from the early 1900s is kept alive in the Lindy Hop community through performances by the Harlem Hot Shots and through cakewalk classes held in conjunction with Lindy Hop classes and workshops.

The cakewalk is also now seen as a game in church, school and other bazaars and fairs. Participants walk around a path with numbered squares in time with music; when the music stops, a number is called out and the person standing on that square receives a cake. Cakes are usually donated by members of the church or school and the participants buy tickets to play.[12][13]

[edit] Quotations

However, it was at one of these balls that I first saw the cake-walk. There was a contest for a gold watch, to be awarded to the hotel head-waiter receiving the greatest number of votes. There was some dancing while the votes were being counted. Then the floor was cleared for the cake-walk. A half-dozen guests from some of the hotels took seats on the stage to act as judges, and twelve or fourteen couples began to walk for a sure enough, highly decorated cake, which was in plain evidence. The spectators crowded about the space reserved for the contestants and watched them with interest and excitement. The couples did not walk round in a circle, but in a square, with the men on the inside. The fine points to be considered were the bearing of the men, the precision with which they turned the corners, the grace of the women, and the ease with which they swung around the pivots. The men walked with stately and soldierly step, and the women with considerable grace. The judges arrived at their decision by a process of elimination. The music and the walk continued for some minutes; then both were stopped while the judges conferred; when the walk began again, several couples were left out. In this way the contest was finally narrowed down to three or four couples. Then the excitement became intense; there was much partisan cheering as one couple or another would execute a turn in extra elegant style. When the cake was finally awarded, the spectators were about evenly divided between those who cheered the winners and those who muttered about the unfairness of the judges. This was the cake-walk in its original form, and it is what the colored performers on the theatrical stage developed into the prancing movements now known all over the world, and which some Parisian critics pronounced the acme of poetic motion.

—James Weldon Johnson: The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, 1912, Chapter 5

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c Cakewalk Dance. Streetswing Dance History Archive. Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
  2. ^ a b Kirsty Duncan PhD. Introduction to Highland Dancing. Electric Scotland. Retrieved on 2007-04-05.
  3. ^ Scott Joplin the Man Who Made Ragtime by James Haskins with Kathleen Benson 1978 Doubleday and Company page 74 ISBN 0-385-11155-x
  4. ^ African American Dance
  5. ^ Black Broadway web site
  6. ^ Will Marion Cook, "Clorindy, the Origin of the Cakewalk" (1944) Will Marion Cook, "Clorindy, the Origin of the Cakewalk" (1944). Printed in Theatre Arts (September, 1947), pp. 61-65.
  7. ^ on line excerpt from book
  8. ^ America Dances! 1897-1948. 2003. DanceTime Publications. segments of the same name. DVD
  9. ^ Tango The Art History of Love. Robert Farris Thompson. 2005. Pantheon Books. pages 8, 89, 108. ISBN 0-375-40931-9
  10. ^ The Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz Revised Edition 1987 Smithsonian Institution Press page 14,15
  11. ^ Crawford, Richard (2000). An Introduction to America's Music. New York City: W. W. Norton & Co.. 
  12. ^ Kimberly Reynolds. Bake Sale Fundraiser. ArticleBin. Retrieved on 2007-04-05.
  13. ^ Cakewalk Fundraiser. Innoko River School. Retrieved on 2007-04-05.

[edit] External links