A performative, competitive dance known as the chalk line walk first appeared around the 1850s on the plantations along the Gulf Coast. Its origins lay in the African-derived dance known as the bamboula -- also the name of a drum -- and it was performed in New Orleans, where on Sundays slaves were allowed to congregate. In their limited freedom, they not only danced the bamboula, but also dances like the pile, chactas and the carabine in Congo Square and at their masters' homes. Louis Moreau Gottschalk, a local creole composer was inspired by the dances and wrote "Bamboula, dance des nègres, Op.2" in 1848. By the 1850s, the bamboula's popularity had spread to Florida, where it possibly mixed with the dance traditions of the Seminole. It eventually developed into the cakewalk, which quickly became popular throughout the Gulf Coast. 


Whereas the minstrelsy craze of the 1840s-1860s was the first major cross-racial American musical exchange, cakewalk's heyday from the 1850s-1890s was probably the second and importantly, a reversal. Minstrelsy was a product of white musicans seeking to simultaneuosly imitate and mock black customs, but cakewalks were initially produced by black performers imitating and mocking whites. Thus began a long history of back and forth musical and cultural dialogues that have been behind nearly every significant innovation in American music.

The two most important things in my life have always been, and will always be, the gift of movement and my relationship with my mother. I started dancing 23 years ago at a small studio in Albuquerque, NM. My grandmother worked at the local telephone company and, as fate would have it, the nearest day care center was not actually a day care center, but instead a dance studio. The rest, as they say, is history.

Dance has shaped and moved my life in such a way that it has become my artistic expression, my creative outlet, and my identity. I’ve always known that dance would remain a huge part of my life regardless of what I chose to do with it professionally. My mother has always supported my decision to be deeply involved in the arts, as well as anything else I’ve put my mind to.

Growing up in Albuquerque, there wasn’t much room for diversity in the dance world. Often I was left feeling like the odd one out because of my body type and ethnicity. I was told I was too muscular to become a dancer during my formative years but, because of my mother’s unwavering faith in me, I continued to pursue my dream as a dancer, regardless of what others tried to tell me.

It wasn’t until I was 13 that I became familiar with the New York modern-based dance company, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. For the first time, I felt enlightened seeing a group of 30 dancers, with all different body types and ethnicities, coming together to share their gift of movement. It was like a breath of fresh air and validated my existence in the dance world. They gave me faith and because of them, I realized that my hopes for becoming a professional dancer were not merely dreams and out-of-reach goals, but were there for the taking.

Today's Dance of the Day is the Filipino dancing inmates moving in unision to the piped in sounds of Flo RIda featuring T-Pain's "Low" (single released earlier this year by Poe Boy/Atlantic and available at Amoeba Music). The video is one in a series from the inmates at the CPDRC facility performing their unique monthly prison-wide group dance. This particular recorded dance is from June 28, 2008 and, like all of the group inmate dances at the Filipino CPDRC facility, is choreographed by Byron F Garcia, who has helped stage (and film) numerous other recorded mass inmate dance displays including one from February this year to Soulja Boy and MC Hammer. 

Although some (mostly non inmates) have critized this forced dancing on inmates as "cruel" or "inhumane," Garcia firmly believes that dancing is a postive force and hence a good tool in the rehabiliation of prisoners. I have to agree with him (the inmates all seem pretty uplifted from these dances) and I can't help but wonder what the results would be if a similar program were adapted in US incarceration facilities. 

The dance of the day is the once phenomenally popular, albeit highly controversial, "dirty boogie" dance. This clip is from the classic John Waters' 1988 movie Hairspray, in which Ricki Lake's "pleasantly plump" teenaged character Tracy Turnblad and her peers are shaking their thing down in the aisles of Baltimore's small but packed Motormouth Records store in a racially tense America, circa 1962. 

The dance part is for the first minute or so of the above clip, which is a nine minute unedited excerpt from the recommended Waters movie which, as you know, was remade last year by director Adam Shankman with John Travolta, Michelle Pfeiffer, & Christopher Walken, etc. Personally I much prefer the original. Both versions are available on DVD @ Amoeba Music. Ask for help if you cannot locate. Note however that the CD/LP soundtrack of the 1988 Hairspray, also available at Ameoba, does not include the song featured during this dance. And if you missed it the first time around, peep the video below of the interview with John Waters below during his Amoeba Music Hollywood instore last year in support of his CD A Date With John Waters (New Line Records).