![]() ![]() Through ragtime dancing, women performed acts of rupture on their bodies and the urban cityscape, transforming social dancing into public statements of gendered resistance.Īfrican Americans have been integral in shaping the aesthetics of modernity generally, and with respect to dance in particular. It was not merely the public nature of the dancing that was seen as dangerous to women, however, but the dances themselves, many of which featured chaotic, off-centred choreography, with either highly sexualized behaviour, as seen in the tango and the apache dance, or clumsy, un-gendered movement, popular in the animal dances of the day. The controlling of social dance was an attempt to restrain what those opposed to the dances saw as unrestrained and indecent physical behaviour by the nation's youth, primarily targeting ragtime dancing's ‘moral degradation’ of young women. Civic institutions and private organizations sought to censor and control both the public space of the dance hall and the bodies of its participants. In the early 1910s many members of the public performed acts of resistance to convention by dancing in the workplace, on the street, and in public halls. In 1976 Joplin was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize.In this article Holly Maples examines how the controversy surrounding the ragtime dance craze in the United States allowed women to renegotiate acceptable gendered behaviour in the public sphere. Joplin's music returned to popularity in the early 1970s with the release of a million-selling album of Joplin's rags recorded by Joshua Rifkin followed by the Academy award-winning movie The Sting which featured several of his compositions, such as "The Entertainer". This was written, according to opera historian Elise Kirk, to be a "timeless story" about a young black "heroine of the spirit who leads her people from superstition and darkness to salvation and enlightenment." It was a failure in its first concert performance in 1915, but was rediscovered and premiered in 1972. Eventually, "the piano-playing public clamored for his music newspapers and magazines proclaimed his genius musicians examined his scores with open admiration." Ragtime historian Susan Curtis noted that "when Joplin syncopated his way into the hearts of millions of Americans at the turn of the century, he helped revolutionize American music and culture."īefore his early death at age 48, Joplin worked on his second opera Treemonisha. "He composed music unlike any ever before written," according to Joplin biographer Edward Berlin. As an adult, Joplin also studied at an all-black college in Sedalia, Missouri. He was taught music theory, keyboard technique, and an appreciation of various European music styles, such as folk and opera. After he studied music with several local teachers, his talent was noticed by a German immigrant music teacher, Julius Weiss, who chose to give the 11-year-old boy lessons free of charge. He was blessed with an amazing ability to improvise at the piano, and was able to enlarge his talents with the music he heard around him, which was rich with the sounds of gospel hymns and spirituals, dance music, plantation songs, syncopated rhythms, blues, and choruses. One of his first pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became ragtime's first and most influential hit, and remained so for a century. He achieved fame for his unique ragtime compositions, and was dubbed the "King of Ragtime." During his brief career, he wrote forty-four original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. Scott Joplin (between July 1867 and January 1868 ? April 1, 1917) was an African-American composer and pianist, born near Texarkana, Texas, into the first post-slavery generation. ![]()
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