Aida Overton Walker and The Trafficking of the Cakewalk
Aida Overton Walker and The Trafficking of the Cakewalk
On the 13th of May 1903 The Tatler, London released a full page photo advertisement of Aida Overton Walker (1880-1914) with her husband and dance partner George W. Walker (1873-1911) headlined: ‘The Real Cakewalk by Real Coons’. A notation praised Mrs. Walker’s ‘cleverness’ at making the “Four Hundred” enthusiastic over the cakewalk. Within a month the new American dance fad that began as a slave plantation parody – as much favoured by Bowery concert saloon prostitutes as by society’s ‘Four Hundred’ elite – had captured the popular tastes of both high and lowbrow London society. By July Mrs. Walker was providing instruction in the dance.
This paper considers the cakewalk and, specifically, Aida Overton Walker’s choreography of it as a complex elastic American cultural form that succeeded abroad by drawing from similarities and differences in British social culture. Seeking approval, monetary gain and social advancement Walker discretely and fashionably brokered a piece of black American culture to a white middle-class British public desiring authenticity, identity and amusement – her version of the cakewalk refashioned black cultural forms into white cultural capital. The cakewalk appealed as a discreet outlet of sexuality, it exoticised and sophisticated the cultural ‘Other’, and it proved in vogue in its ‘authenticity’ and performance of the ‘real’. Particular attention will be paid to Walker’s multiplicitous use of her body in this Trans-Atlantic negotiation, to her sense of double-consciousness, and to her use of grace and style which would emerge as material for the reconfiguration of the African American subculture.
Cakewalk Dance, Cultural History, African Americans, Performance, Intersectionality, Transatlantic
Millette, Holly-Gale
909906ff-426b-47ab-a71a-5788ea36c213
Millette, Holly-Gale
909906ff-426b-47ab-a71a-5788ea36c213
Millette, Holly-Gale
(2004)
Aida Overton Walker and The Trafficking of the Cakewalk.
Crosstown Traffic: Anglo-American Cultural Exchange Since 1865 Conference, University of Warwick, Warwick, United Kingdom.
04 - 06 Apr 2004.
(Submitted)
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Conference or Workshop Item
(Paper)
Abstract
On the 13th of May 1903 The Tatler, London released a full page photo advertisement of Aida Overton Walker (1880-1914) with her husband and dance partner George W. Walker (1873-1911) headlined: ‘The Real Cakewalk by Real Coons’. A notation praised Mrs. Walker’s ‘cleverness’ at making the “Four Hundred” enthusiastic over the cakewalk. Within a month the new American dance fad that began as a slave plantation parody – as much favoured by Bowery concert saloon prostitutes as by society’s ‘Four Hundred’ elite – had captured the popular tastes of both high and lowbrow London society. By July Mrs. Walker was providing instruction in the dance.
This paper considers the cakewalk and, specifically, Aida Overton Walker’s choreography of it as a complex elastic American cultural form that succeeded abroad by drawing from similarities and differences in British social culture. Seeking approval, monetary gain and social advancement Walker discretely and fashionably brokered a piece of black American culture to a white middle-class British public desiring authenticity, identity and amusement – her version of the cakewalk refashioned black cultural forms into white cultural capital. The cakewalk appealed as a discreet outlet of sexuality, it exoticised and sophisticated the cultural ‘Other’, and it proved in vogue in its ‘authenticity’ and performance of the ‘real’. Particular attention will be paid to Walker’s multiplicitous use of her body in this Trans-Atlantic negotiation, to her sense of double-consciousness, and to her use of grace and style which would emerge as material for the reconfiguration of the African American subculture.
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Submitted date: 2004
Venue - Dates:
Crosstown Traffic: Anglo-American Cultural Exchange Since 1865 Conference, University of Warwick, Warwick, United Kingdom, 2004-04-04 - 2004-04-06
Keywords:
Cakewalk Dance, Cultural History, African Americans, Performance, Intersectionality, Transatlantic
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Local EPrints ID: 467795
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/467795
PURE UUID: 6d3ab6a9-9c47-4804-917a-e8411f46558a
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Date deposited: 22 Jul 2022 16:30
Last modified: 23 Jul 2022 02:06
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