Josephine Baker Dances the Black Bottom in 1926 or 1927
Probably everyone knows all about Josephine Baker (19o6-1975) - her beginnings in the Harlem Renaissance of St Louis and on Broadway, Les Folies Bergeres in Paris in 1925 and her famous erotic bare-breasted dance, performed in pretty much just a string of bananas. Revealing a daring and theatricality that would be well understood in sectors of the our community.
I've posted on her famous banana dance, filmed on the stage of Les Folies Bergeres in 1927 by an American director. The (recently discovered) footage is however at a great distance, blurry and Josephine is covered up.
What's great about the studio-filmed performance here is that it's close-up. You can really appreciate the woman's extraordinary vitality and almost electric-charged exuberance. As well as her comic extreme face pulling, somewhat akin to Fanny Brice.
Much has been said about all the attendant dangers of Josephine presenting an image of unbridled 'native' sensuality - but in the end there's still the power and joy in the performance to be appreciated.
And if needs be I keep in mind Josephine's adoption of 12 multi-ethnic children - the Rainbow Tribe.
Nick,
ReplyDeleteAD Films needs a huge grant so it can carry on its fabulous work on a full time basis!
This is just delicious...what a marvelous sense of humor she must have had. Just great fun mixed with a bit of blatant naughtiness. No wonder she fled the US.
I can only imagine what howls of outrage that would greet her performances today from the Religious and Cultural Right Wing--who would also decry the "abuse" being inflicted on her adopted children since they were being raised in a single parent home.
Baker deserves to be much, much better known in the US than she is. Thank you for this!
hey paul
ReplyDeletemaybe a government grant is about to land on the doorstep!
it was a post that had to happen in the sense that i had one on youtube using this material - one which was removed by the site due to it's 'obscene content' (quote youtube) - nearly fell over backwards with surprise - and then wrote my email of amazed protest
what i admire about josephine (funny how using her first name seems so right and 'miss baker' so weird) is that she lived much of her life without reference to convention - Sartre's 'good faith'
BTW she had an affaire with colette (among other ladies) - which again speaks to her sense of following her natural impulses even if against the convention of the time
i know the other view - that she allowed herself to be used to promote a certain view of black people - but i choose to positively focus on josephine's extraordinary achievement
good to hear as usual, best, nick