Sample Essay On The Jazz Age In Cinema: The Modernization Of American Dances

The Stormy Weather starring Bill Robinson and Lena Horne was one of the most successful Broadway musicals ever created especially by a full-African American actors and actresses. The film presents a charming combination of jazz, singing, dancing, and occasional rhythmic rants of the characters from the story. At first, I was quite skeptical whether the film will make me interested until the end; however, the Stormy Weather’s brilliant and happy music creates a lively atmosphere which is impossible to deny. The film was set against the backdrop of the Progressive era, approximately during the 1920s, considering the clothes and the popularity of ragtime music. The Stormy Weather presents the evolution of American dances from rigid social dances to lively and liberated dances that signify the arrival of the modern era. The film begins with Bill Robinson performing his famous tap dance along with other African-American children from the neighborhood. Tap dancing as exemplified on the film was performed using rapid switches of the feet, slightly tapping the floor quickly and alternating the movement with the other one. The dance was done in repetitive sequences of tapping the foot slightly on to the floor to create the famous ‘tapping noise’ mimicking the audiences’ clapping. Another well-known dance performed on the film was the ‘cakewalk’ wherein dancers surrounded the replica of the cake wearing gaudy and bright costumes resembling the styles from Rio de Janeiro Lenten parade. The cakewalk dance scene from the film consists of rapid movements that still retain the elegant hand gestures and the alternating movement of the feet done in an exaggerated fashion as a form of mockery towards the older dances characterized by rigid and lack of freedom of expression for both partners. Originally, cakewalk dance was done by partner couples joined together by elbows and together they would walk around the dance halls; this dance also shares the same characteristics like tap dance. While tap dance consists of rapid alternating footsteps that create rhythmic sounds on the floor’s surface, the cakewalk was different mainly because this was a dance meant for couples. With the introduction of the Broadway musicals, the cakewalk dance became a popular dance for couples; it is exaggerated playful movements contrasts the waltz and other dances that went before it. In this case, people became keen in learning the cakewalk due to its utilitarian steps in a sense that anyone can perform a cakewalk step since the steps were not complicated to begin with. Next was the boat scene which I find really nice especially the actors successfully integrated the famous jazz scat singing in sync with their steps. In the Jazz period, scat singing was done by uttering sounds that do not translate any meaning in English; more or less the actors on that part were more focused on aligning their singing to the rhythmic tap dances they perform; however, unlike the beginning tap dance in the film, this time the actors had incorporated twisted dance moves by crossing the feet and performing the tap dance with such a rapid pace that the steps were quite hard to discern especially since the actors purposely increased the temp of their footwork to cooperate with the fast scat singing of the Jazz actors. In this case, the film also marked the transition of the world from rigid dances of the early 20th century mainly due to less emphasis on footwork and the concept of these images that copy the smile of the soul they want to possess, it was dance done without caring for formation; the only formation of the dance was the joining of two people through elbows and perform a cakewalk in order to entertain the audiences within the dining hall.
On the final phase of the film, the actors also tried to perform the soft-core ballet dance but done in a bit fast version; for instance, the original ballet are noted for its slow and graceful moves; however, in the film, the ballet version became a bit faster probably to allow the characters’ to adjust since ballet was a difficult dance to perform for those who lacked training. In this respect, the Stormy Weather differs from the actual ballet formation since the ballet formation often prescribes the adherence towards the existing rules of the ballet, but the film liberated the dance and ballet became the slow-movement dance. Indeed, through the movements of the African-American society and their utter rejection of the previous dance styles for ballet. On a final note, the film Stormy Weather exceeded by expectations in terms of dancing as it clearly depicted the life and the works of the African-American population during the early 20th century. The film popularized some of the best loved jazz dancing such as mentioned previously as if nothing happened. The incorporation of the scat singing to emphasized the repetitive sounds coming from the feet. The essence of the African-American population, in the contrasts of the other orders would be re-assigned with an effective message that tells the American people as the one who spearheaded.