Discussion Post

In addition to tension between blacks and whites, xenophobia (fear of strangers or foreigners or of anything strange or foreign) became widespread in America as incoming immigrant numbers took a dizzying jump from 3,687,564 in the decade beginning in 1891, to 8,795,386 from 1901-1910 (Harvard University Library, n.d.) An example of xenophobic policy (and the government's view on women's rights) was the 1907 Expatriation Act. The Act declared that an American woman must take the citizenship of her husband when she marries; so, if she married a foreigner, she forfeited her American citizenship. Musicals sometimes toyed with both of these issues. In an interesting twist on xenophobia, a fascination with royalty still held sway over American citizens. A common theme in musicals was an American girl whose parents want her to marry English royalty. These musicals usually ended with the girl falling happily in love with a poor American.

Patriotism became a strong theme in musical comedy. “Gunboat” musicals featured a sailor character from the U. S. Navy and his escapades in a foreign country. These musicals managed to fire up their audiences’ patriotic pride, while fanning the audiences' fear of foreigners.

The spirit of patriotism was fiercely embodied in the frame of a Broadway performer named George M. Cohan—America’s Yankee Doodle Boy. Cohan was so dedicated to national pride that he told people he was born on July, 4th 1878. (His birthday was actually the 3rd.) In the Broadway musical, Little Johnny Jones (1904)—written, produced and directed by Cohan—he even wrote and sang a song about it:

I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy,

Yankee Doodle do or die.

A real live nephew of my uncle Sam,

I was born on the 4th of July.

I've got a Yankee Doodle sweetheart,

she's my Yankee Doodle joy.

Yankee doodle came to London,

just to ride the ponies.

Say, I am a Yankee Doodle Boy.

John Kenrick, a musical theatre historian and professor at New York University, said Cohan “grew up in vaudeville, becoming a master of such dance forms as reel, the waltz clog, the buck and wing, and more. The spirit of vaudeville reached the legitimate musical stage when Cohan wrote, directed and starred in Little Johnny Jones” (2011, “Song and Dance Man”). Like John Durang, Cohan would do anything for applause. He incorporated flips and tricks into his song and dance routines. Cohan’s energy and boyish good looks made him a favorite with audiences. Little Johnny Jones showed the American spirit on stage. Previous musicals had highlighted “flowering sentimentality and stilted dialogue…[ Little Johnny Jones offered] instead a dramatically serious story engaged with current events, employing a brashly vernacular [natural to the situation] idiom directly on current American usage” (Knapp, 2005, p. 106).

The Hippodrome

A history of Broadway dance must include the Hippodrome theatre, a venue synonymous with outrageous spectacle. Year after year, producers displayed shows of outlandish extravagance framed by scenery to match.

Built on Sixth Avenue between 43rd and 44th, the Hippodrome opened in 1905.

The Hippodrome was the largest legitimate theater in the world. It accommodated over 5,000 customers at one time. The depth of its stage from footlights to back wall was 110 feet, while in length the stage exceeded 200 feet, nearly equal to a whole city block. The stage was lit by 5,000 incandescent lights and fifty-three calcium lights. The staff of over 1,000 required to run the house included seventy-eight electricians and twenty-two engineers. It employed a permanent ballet of 200 as well as 400 chorus girls and 100 chorus boys. The vastness of the house precluded ordinary entertainments. Spectacle was all the house could properly afford and, in its heyday, all it presented. Opening night was essentially a series of circus acts and ballets. (Bordman, 2001, p. 243)

The Hippodrome offered regular employment to hundreds of dancers. The sheer number of dancers onstage during a “ballet” must have been a spectacle of its own.

European dance styles, such as waltzes, minuets and reels, ballet, and pantomime were very popular in early American musical entertainment. Vaudeville contributed a variety of innovative dance acts to join these more traditional dances on the stage (Kislan, 1987):

Acrobatics – Gymnastic, athletic movement and tricks. Sometimes included choreographed stage “fights” with a punch or kick from a dancer flipping or flinging his opponent across the stage. Also included adagio teams: a man and a woman who performed amazing lifts.

Contortion – Movement that displayed a performer’s freakish flexibility, e.g. both legs wrapped up behind the head.

Eccentric dance – A dance created by the performer that throws away conventional ideas of training and form to show unusual movement, usually for comic effect.

Comic dance – Movement used to enhance a comic plot or character.

Legomania – A flurry of impressive, high kicks to the front, side and back of the body. Sometimes a leg was held with the hand up next to the dancer’s ear while she hopped around the stage.

Tap – Though this style of dance was not called “tap” until the next decade, stepping, clogging and jig steps were blended with Master Juba-type rhythms and syncopated movements to create a wide variety of “tap” styles.

“Ethnic” dances – Exotic dances taken from foreign lands. These dances often presented stereotypes of world cultures, theatrical versions of authentic dances or completely fictitious dances invented to display exotic behaviors and images of "other" cultures.