ALMACK’S DANCE HALL AND THE BIRTHPLACE OF TAP DANCE
FALSE FACE, FALSE HEART, my YA Historical fiction project, set in the Bowery Theatre in New York City during the tumultuous year of 1849 has sent me on a journey Combing Through the Research.
I love the fact that the United States can claim particular art forms as indigenous i.e. Jazz, Hip Hop, Musical Theatre, and Tap Dance!
A combination of the West African gioube and the Irish jig, tap dance became known as American jig and juba. Black and white minstrel show entertainers wore hard-soled shoes and performed a dance called jigging.
In the mid-nineteenth century, Almack’s Dance Hall—located below a carpenter shop in the Five Points region of Manhattan—was one of the hottest places to blow off steam. The clientele was as diverse as the neighborhood with white, black, and Asian patrons drinking and jigging side by side. (See previous post here: The Five Points)
The Five Points
Photo Credit: General Research Division, The New York Public Library. "Five Points, 1827" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1855. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/94032e2f-e505-4895-e040-e00a180623ae
A Five Points Rum Shop
Photo Credit: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. "A Five Points rum shop" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1872. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e1-2834-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99
Prominent men of the gentry, politicians, and writers including Charles Dickens frequented Almack’s Dance Hall (AKA Pete’s Saloon). Their visits were unwelcomed and referred to by the working class as slumming. Dickens, described the vibrancy of the saloon in his travelogue American Notes, giving Almack’s unexpected notoriety.
The owner of the establishment was Pete Williams—a free black man, who made a financial success of the dance hall but gambled away much of the money. Williams was a fan of the Bowery Theatre (See previous post here: The Bowery Theatre) and the American actor, Edwin Forrest. (See previous post about Forrest here: Edwin Forrest)
People went to Almack’s to let loose, but also to witness the teenage tap dancer William Henry Lane take a turn on the dance floor. Also known as Master Juba, Lane would stomp and beat out intricate rhythms accompanied by a band featuring a fiddle and tambourine player.
A Library of Congress article, Tap Dance in America: A Short History, says of William Henry Lane (Master Juba):
“Lane is considered the single most influential performer in nineteenth-century dance. His grafting of African rhythms and a loose body styling onto the exacting techniques of jig and clog forged a new rhythmic blend of percussive dance that was considered the earliest form of American tap dance.”
William Henry Lane/Master Juba
Photo Credit: General Research Division, The New York Public Library. "Five Points, 1827" The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1855. https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/94032e2f-e505-4895-e040-e00a180623ae
