1. Cook, Will Marion, from Jes Lak White F'lks: A One-Act Operetto (1900). Found in the Music Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DCGoogle Scholar.

2. Aida Overton Walker (1880–1914) was the principal dancer, singer, and choreographer for the Williams and Walker Theatre Company from 1898 to 1909, appearing in Sons of Ham (1901), In Dahomey (1902–5), Abyssinia (1906–7), and Bandanna Land (1908–9). From 1909 to 1912, she performed in Cole and Johnson's The Red Moon (first performed in 1908) and S. H. Dudley's His Honor the Barber (1911–2). She formed her own vaudeville tour from 1912 to 1914. For an excellent biography of Walker, see Newman, Richard, “‘The Brightest Star:’ Aida Overton Walker in the Age of Ragtime and Cakewalk,” Prospects: An Annual of American Cultural Studies 18, Salzman, Jack, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 465–481Google Scholar.

3. Cooper, Anna Julia, A Voice From the South (1892), Schomburg Series, Gates, Henry Louis Jr, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 134Google Scholar.

4. Davies, Carole Boyce, Black Women, Writing and Identity: Migrations of the Subject (London: Routledge, 1994), 8–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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6. Quoted in Stuckey, Sterling, Slave Culture: Nationalist Theory and the Foundations of Black America (New York: Oxford UP, 1987), 65Google Scholar. For an interesting discussion on African choreography, see Thompson, Robert Farris, “An Aesthetic of the Cool: West African Dance,” The Theatre of Black Americans, Hill, Errol, ed. (New York: Applause Theatre Book Pub., 1987), 99–111Google Scholar.

7. In “Afro-American Core Culture Social Dance: An Examination of Four Aspects of Meaning,” Dance Research Journal 15:2 (Spring 1983), Katrina Hazzard-Gordon maintains that African-American dance “is identifiable on the basis of its continuity with both traditional and contemporary African movement” (21). Hazzard-Gordon argues that, until recently, most African Americans lived in isolation from whites and therefore were able to develop dance forms irrespective of white mainstream culture. Jook, honky tonk, afterhours clubs, and rent parties are what Hazzard-Gordon calls the “jook continuum” of African-American culture. Cakewalking, however, was active in both white and black cultures at the turn of the century and served, along with ragtime music, as one of the earliest cultural cross-over productsGoogle Scholar.

8. Levine, Lawrence, Black Culture and Black Consciousness (London: Oxford University Press, 1977), 16Google Scholar.

9. Virginia Writers' Project, The Negro in Virginia (New York: Hastings House, 1940), 89Google Scholar; quoted in Emery, Lynne Fauley, Black Dance in the United States from 1619 to 1970 (New York: Dance Horizons, 1980), 91Google Scholar.

10. Levine, Black Culture, 65.

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13. Abrahams, Roger D., Singing the Master (New York: Penguin Books, 1993), 96Google Scholar.

14. Billy McClain, in an open letter to The Indianapolis Freeman, 23 April 1910: 6. McClain refers to the group as the Hyer Sisters; however, it would appear that the correct spelling was Hyers. Many newspapers were lax in spelling their name. For an excellent study of the history of the Hyers Sisters, see Hill, Errol, “The Hyers Sisters: Pioneers in Black Musical Comedy,” The American Stage, Engle, Ron and Miller, Tice, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 115–130Google Scholar.

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20. For a sample of literature on cakewalking, see Johnson, James Weldon, The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, Three Negro Classics, Franklin, John Hope, ed. (New York: Avon Books, 1965), 440–441Google Scholar; Marshall, and Sterns, Jean, Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance (London: The Macmillan Co., 1964), 121–124Google Scholar; Emery, Black Dance, 91–2, 206–15; Floyd, Samuel A. Jr, “African American Dance and Music,” The Western Journal of Black Studies 13:3 (1989): 132Google Scholar; Haskins, James, Black Dance in America (New York: Harper Trophy, 1990), 21–30Google Scholar; and Marshall, and Sterns, Jean, “Williams and Walker and the Beginnings of Vernacular Dance on Broadway,” Keystone Folklore Quarterly 11 (Spring 1966): 3–12Google Scholar.

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23. Quoted in Johnson, James Weldon, Black Manhattan (New York: A Da Capo Paperback, 1930; rept. 1991), 105Google Scholar.

24. Quoted in Blesh, Rudi and Janis, Harriet, They all Played Ragtime (New York: Oak Publications, 1971), 96Google Scholar. See also Levine, Black Culture, 17; and Piersen, William D., Black Legacy: America's Hidden Heritage (Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1993), 64.

25. Helen Armstead-Johnson, unpublished remarks, clipping file, Dance Collection, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.

26. Baldwin, “The Cakewalk,” 210.

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30. Levine, Black Culture, 16–17.

31. Kleinhans, Chuck, “Taking Out the Trash: Camp and the Politics of Parody,” The Politics and Poetics of Camp, Meyer, Moe, ed. (London: Routledge, 1994), 198Google Scholar. Kleinhans adds that parody “does not reside in the work alone, but rather derives from the stance people take toward it,” becoming “deep and cutting against the past, against the status quo, against what holds people back. It is fused with anger in art and political expression” (198).

32. Quoted in Sterns, Jazz Dance, 22.

33. Sundquist, Eric, To Wake the Nations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 281Google Scholar. While Sundquist's study of the Cakewalk is exemplary, he avoids discussing Aida Overton Walker.

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38. The principle of call-and-response has been used to describe African-American church services in which the audience responds to the preacher. Audiences are more than mere passive listeners; they engage in a dialogue with the speaker, supplying a new “call,” which causes a new response. The dynamic of call-and-response transferred to black theatre and musical concerts. Walker's understanding of such patterns enabled her to read audience responses, even white audiences who usually only respond after the skit, song, or dance was completed (sometimes by applauding, sometimes by silence) rather than during the performance itself.

39. The Indianapolis Freeman, 2 February 1898: 4.

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42. DuBois, W.E.B., The Philadelphia Negro (New York: Benjamin Blom, 1899), 320. DuBois goes on to say that the Cakewalk “is a rhythmic promenade or slow dance, and when well done is pretty and quite innocent.” However, DuBois adds that the Cakewalk often was accompanied by “much fighting and drinking” (320)Google Scholar.

43. Johnson, Autobiography, 440.

44. Walker, Aida Overton, “Colored Men and Women on the American Stage,” Colored American Magazine (October 1905): 571Google Scholar. This essay first was published in The Indianapolis Freeman, 21 October 1905: 6. My quotes are from Colored American Magazine, reprinted and edited from the Freeman. Future references will appear in the text as CAM with page number.

45. Gatewood, Willard, Aristocrats of Color (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990), raises the point that what set the black elite apart from other African Americans “was not merely wealth and the life style that it made possible; of no less importance was their emphasis on education, pride in family heritage and tradition, and adherence to a rigid moral code and Victorian decorum.” Fully aware that they were ignored by whites of similar position, upper-class blacks, Gatewood adds, sought to avoid being classed with other blacks “by keeping to themselves and trying to ‘make their standards as high as they can.’ The ‘better element of the race,’ an Indiana visitor to New York noted in 1887, was never seen parading Fifth Avenue on an afternoon or forcing ‘its way into theatres.’” (105; Gatewood quotes from the Indianapolis World, 9 July 1887)Google Scholar.

46. Walker, Aida Overton, “Opportunities the Stage Offers Intelligent and Talented Women,” The New York Age, 26 December 1908: 6Google Scholar. This comment may have been influenced by the presence of Abbie Mitchell in the Williams and Walker Company. Mitchell entered show business at an extremely early age, and her marriage to Will Marion Cook, who was at least twenty years her senior, caused some scandal.

47. For an interesting discussion of the “racial uplift” movement as part of the imperialist civilizing mission, see Gaines, Kevin, “Uplift Ideology as ‘Civilizing Mission:’ Pauline E. Hopkins on Race and Imperialism,” Cultures of United States Imperialism, Kaplin, Amy and Pease, Donald E., eds. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), 437Google Scholar; and Moses, Wilson Jeremiah, The Wings of Ethiopia: Studies in African-American Life and Letters (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1990). Moses describes middle-class African-American commitment to racial uplift for the following reasons: “The petite bourgeoisie were embarrassed by the masses' lack of ‘civilization.’ … The petite bourgeoisie believed that their own position would become more secure only as their race as a whole became more powerful, sophisticated, and secure. … Finally, there was a genuine feeling of sympathy on the part of the petite bourgeoisie for the struggling masses of black people” (96)Google Scholar.

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50. Terrell, Mary Church, “The Progress of Colored Women,” The Voice of the Negro (July 1904): 292–94Google Scholar; quoted in The Voice of Black America, Foner, Eric, ed. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972), 645Google Scholar. There were numerous essays in African-American journals dealing with “racial uplift” and “womanhood.” See, for instance, Washington, Booker T., “The Club Movement Among Colored Women of America,” A New Negro for a New Century (Chicago: American Publishing House, 1900), 379–405Google Scholar; “Afro-American Womanhood,” The New York Age, 22 February 1906Google Scholar; “The Afro-American Woman and Her Work,” The New York Age, 5 April 1906Google Scholar; and “Women's Part in the Uplift of the Negro Race,” Colored American Magazine (January 1907): 53–61, to cite only a few of many examplesGoogle Scholar.

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52. Hine, Darlene Clark, Hine Sight: Black Women and the Re-Construction of American History (Brooklyn, NY: Carlson Publishing, 1994), 15Google Scholar. One of the most important clubs to be formed was the National Association of Colored Women (1896). The NACW merged resources from various groups across the country to develop a strong national organization that attacked the prevailing negative images of African-American women. For a listing of the clubs and their individual affiliations throughout the US, see Washington, “Names of the Clubs of the National Association of Colored Women,” A New Negro for a New Century, 406–28.

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57. For an excellent overview of the transitional period at the turn of the century from the perspectives of an intellectual and social-cultural historian, see Livingston, James, Pragmatism and the Political Economy of Cultural Revolution, 1850–1940 (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 128–129Google Scholar; for an economic perspective, see Sklar, Martin J., The Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism, 1890–1916 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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59. For a discussion on authenticity and modernism as it pertained to African-American Theatre, see my essay, “The Mirror Up To Nature: Modernist Aesthetics and Racial Authenticity in African American Theatre, 1895–1900,” Theatre History Studies 16 (June 1996), forthcomingGoogle Scholar.

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65. See Veblen, Thorstein, “Conspicuous Consumption,” The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), (London: MacMillan Co., 1912), 68–101Google Scholar.

66. Huggins, Nathan Irvin, Harlem Renaissance (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), 270Google Scholar.

67. Winter, Marian Hannah, “Juba and American Minstrelsy,” Dance Index VI:2 (February 1947): 45Google Scholar.

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75. Newman, “The Brightest Star,” 476.

76. Aida Overton Walker, Pittsburgh Leader, 11 May 1906, BR.

77. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Three Negro Classics, 215.

78. North, Michael, The Dialect of Modernism: Race, Language and Twentieth-Century Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 67Google Scholar.

79. In discussing hybridity in African-American aesthetics, I build on points made by Kelley, Robin D. G., “Notes on Deconstructing ‘The Folk,’” American Historical Review 97:5 (December 1992): 1400–1408CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Kelley writes that folk culture, and black folk culture in particular, “is actually bricolage, a cutting, pasting, and incorporating of various cultural forms that then become categorized in a racially or ethnically coded aesthetic hierarchy” (1402). Many modern scholars have begun to recognize the shifting ambivalences in the wide range of text, dance, and music, through which cultures have borrowed from one another. See also Radano, Ronald M., “Soul Texts and the Blackness of Folk,” Modernism/Modernity 2:1 (January 1995): 71–96, for an excellent discussion on the hybridity of turn-of-the-century African-American music and its relationship to DuBois's theory of double-consciousness; and Women & Performance 7:2, 8:1 no. 14–15 (1995), double-issue devoted to “New Hybrid Identities.”CrossRefGoogle Scholar

80. Hurston, Zora Neale, “Characteristics of Negro Expression,” The Gender of Modernism, Scott, Bonnie Kime, ed. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990), 178Google Scholar.

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83. For a history of the Salome dance and its popularity, see “The Vulgarization of Salome,” Current Literature 45:4 (October 1908): 437–440Google Scholar. For recent studies, see Kendall, Elizabeth, Where She Danced (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), 73–90Google Scholar; and Showalter, Elaine, Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin de Siècle (New York: Penguin Books, 1990), 144–168. In the current studies, Aida Overton Walker's Salome dance is overlooked despite documentation of her performanceGoogle Scholar.

84. Walton, Lester, “Music and the Stage,” The New York Age, 27 August 1908: 6Google Scholar.

85. For reports on Walker's Salome, see especially the Williams and Walker file at BR. See also the Schomburg Collection for Research in Black Culture, NY; Music Division, Library of Congress; Harvard Theatre Collection; and the Museum of the City of New York. Walker's interpretation of the Salome dance received good reactions from critics by and large, although some accused her of imitating white contemporaries. Most reviewers praised her modesty, gracefulness, and acting. One critic's racism surfaced in noting that, in Walker's Salome choreography, “pantherine movements have all the languorous grace which is traditionally bound up with Orient dancing,” Vanity Fair, 3 August 1912; BR.

86. For an alternative view in support of syncretism, see Apter, Andrew, “Herskovits's Heritage: Rethinking Syncretism in the African Diaspora,” Diaspora 1:3 (Winter 1991): 235–260. Building smoothly on Herskovits's anthropological analysis, Apter emphasizes religious continuity and retention as a fundamental component of African American revision and resistance. Without gainsaying Apter's position, I maintain a poststructuralist view, one more consonant with performative multivariances than religious foundationalismCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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88. Dunbar, Paul Laurence, “We Wear the Mask” (1895), African-American Poetry of the Nineteenth Century: An Anthology, Sherman, Joan R., ed. (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 402Google Scholar.

89. Cook, “Change the Joke,” 114.

90. See Radano, “Soul Texts.” Radano claims that, since the 1980s, African-American critics have distanced themselves from the “reified categories” established during the Black Arts movement of the 1960s and have instead resituated black cultural history within the “unstable universe of poststructuralism's free play of signs” (72). In similar fashion, I argue that Walker attempted to dislodge the representation of race by employing the free play of signs available to her through cakewalking's unstable and variable form of racial representation.

91. For a left-oriented study on the rise of commercial capitalism at the end of the nineteenth century, see Leach, William, Land of Desire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993)Google Scholar.

92. For an interesting discussion of style in African-American culture, see Maultsby, Portia K., “Africanisms in African-American Music,” Africanisms in American Culture, Holloway, Joseph E., ed. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991), 188–191Google Scholar.

93. There is always a danger in postcolonial studies of romanticizing the oppressed underclass. Suffice it to say that Walker paid close attention to economic advancement, building her resistance to white hegemony and gender oppression while simultaneously assuring her own fortune. In considering power—the manner in which power is negotiated from racial and gender perspectives—see, among other works, Martin, Biddy, “Feminism, Criticism, and Foucault,” New German Critique 27 (Fall 1982): 3–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Abu-Lughod, Lila, “The Romance of Resistance: Tracing Transformations of Power Through Bedouin Women,” American Ethnologist 17 (1990): 41–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Major, Clarence E., Deromanticizing Black History (Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press, 1991) also reminds us that there is a real danger in constructing bold but romantic histories of black lifeGoogle Scholar.

94. Hall, Stuart, “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory, Williams, Patrick and Chrisman, Laura, eds. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 394Google Scholar.

95. Walker, The Tatler, 13; TML.

96. Willis, Susan, “Memory and Mass Culture,” History and Memory in African-American Culture, Fabre, Geneviève and O'Meally, Robert, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 182Google Scholar.

97. Johnson, Black Manhattan, 107.