BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY History of Black Dance: 20th-Century Black American Dance

Front cover of The Sketch showing Josephine Baker, 1931.

Harlem Renaissance

Black culture had a real influence on dance and other art forms in the 20th century. After the American civil war a surge of people from the Caribbean and Deep South migrated into North American cities. In New York the district of Harlem became home to black people from different cultural traditions with their own dances and music.

Harlem became the ‘in place’ to be amongst both black and white New Yorkers – its clubs brought together dance and music that was alive and exciting. Dances such as the Charleston, Lindyhop and Jitterbug sprang from these clubs as did Jazz music. The influence of this Harlem Renaissance on music and dance in New York in the early 1920s spread into Europe.

Shuffle Along

The first all black musical on Broadway called Shuffle Along opened in 1921. This was a smash hit, creating an interest in black dance in the theatre. The show also developed opportunities for individual black performers and dancers. In 1923 the Broadway hit Running Wild came to England and the Charleston became the dance of the decade.

Josephine Baker

The Revue Nègre in Paris introduced the dancer Josephine Baker. She became a huge star in Europe but was never as popular in America (where racial tension continued to marginalise black dance and dancers). All black musicals disappeared from Broadway in the 1920s when white musicals started to employ more black performers and black dance was incorporated into their programme.

Florence Mills

In Britain, black dancers appeared in musicals and revues from the early 20th century. In the 1920s Florence Mills starred in the Broadway musical Shuffle Along (which inspired the growing popularity for tap dancing) and later Plantation Review which toured to London in 1924.

Her next musical Blackbirds opened in London in 1926 and her song ‘I’m a little Blackbird looking for a Bluebird’ became Mills’s theme song. Her singing was beautiful and her dancing had a comedy streak that audiences loved. Florence Mills became a star in both New York and London. In the UK reviewers proclaimed her talent and she was the talk of London.

Tragically Florence died at the age of 32, after an operation to remove her appendix. Thousands of people attended her funeral in Harlem.

Buddy Bradley

In 1933 C. B. Cochran invited Buddy Bradley to London to work on the Rodgers and Hart musical Evergreen. It was the first time a black dancer had worked on an all white show.

Buddy Bradley was a major force in musicals and revue in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1908, he was mostly self-taught and made his debut as a dancer in 1926 in the Florence Mills Revue in New York. He staged dances in the great 1920s revues for Ziegfeld, George White, Earl Carroll and Lew Leslie’s legendary black revue Blackbirds. He also staged routines for such stars as Eleanor Powell, Ruby Keeler and Adèle Astaire.

In the 1930s he left New York and danced in London in C. B. Cochran’s 1931 Revue. There was a rumour that he was forced to leave New York because the Mafia owner of Harlem’s Cotton Club did not appreciate Bradley teaching his girlfriend to dance.

Bradley went on to work with Jessie Matthews and Jack Buchanan on their major musical shows and films throughout the 1930s. In 1932 he collaborated with Frederick Ashton on a ballet High Yellow. Bradley had to teach the ballerina Alicia Markova how to dance with snake hips. He said that the most difficult thing to teach classical dancers was how to bend their knees.

Until 1967 Bradley ran a dance studio in London. He also continued choreographing in England, France, Switzerland, Italy and Spain. His choreography mixed classical and modern dance and he also took movements from ice shows and jazz. When tap fell out of favour in the 1950s, he concentrated on jazz dance. He became the first African-American to run a British white company when he formed his own group to appear in variety shows and television in the 1950s.