“THIS PHENOMENON, ‘JUBA’”
CHARLES DICKENS WAS NOT impressed by New York during his 1841 tour. He found the streets filthy, the buildings insubstantial and unimpressive, and his hosts coarse and unsophisticated. Dickens’s published account of the trip, American Notes, overflows with sarcasm and condescension. But there was one part of his tour that Dickens loved: his visit to a Five Points dance hall.
Victorian Englishmen such as Dickens might sneer disdainfully at most American arts and letters, but they were fascinated by African-American culture. Dickens’s introduction to black American dance took place on Orange Street at Almack’s, one of the many black-run dance emporiums then operating in Five Points. He was enthralled from the moment he walked in and descended into the narrow, low-ceilinged basement dance room. “Heyday! the landlady of Almacks’s thrives!” Dickens declared, describing her as “a buxom fat mulatto woman, with sparkling eyes, whose head is daintily ornamented with a handkerchief of many colours.”
Dickens initially found the dance exhibition staged by five or six black couples unimpressive. But then a teenager, described by Dickens as “the wit of the assembly, and the greatest dancer known,” dashed onto the floor. “Instantly the fiddler grins, and goes at it tooth and nail; there is a new energy in the tambourine; new laughter in the dancers; new smiles in the landlady; new confidence in the landlord; new brightness in the very candles,” wrote Dickens as he thrilled to the dancer’s multitude of steps and dance styles. “Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-out, snapping his fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and heels like nothing but the man’s fingers on the tambourine; dancing with two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs, two wire legs, two spring legs—all sorts of legs and no legs—what is this to him? And in what walk of life, or dance of life, does man ever get such stimulating applause as thunders about him, when, having danced his partner off her feet, and himself too, he finishes by leaping gloriously on the bar-counter and calling for something to drink . . .?”1
The sixteen-year-old who mesmerized Dickens that night was William Henry Lane, one of the most influential dancers of the nineteenth century. Despite his fame, only the barest outlines of Lane’s biography are known. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Lane apparently honed his dancing skills with tutelage from black jig-and-reel dancer Jim Lowe. Moving to Five Points, Lane became known professionally as “Master Juba,” though whether this was a nickname chosen by African-American friends or a stage name dreamed up by a white promoter is unclear. As would become a tradition in African-American dance, Master Juba first demonstrated his prowess by imitating the best moves of his competitors before wowing audiences with his own innovations.
According to the Herald, crowds squeezed into “Pete Williams’ place,” as Almack’s later became known, to see “this phenomenon, ‘Juba,’ imitate all the dancers of the day and their special steps. Then Bob Ellingham, the interlocutor and master of ceremonies, would say, ‘Now, Master Juba, show your own jig.’ Whereupon he would go through all his own steps and specialties, with never a resemblance in any of them to those he had just imitated.” When Lane performed in London in 1848, the British also found his combination of speed and grace astounding. “How could he tie his legs into such knots,” asked the Illustrated London News, “and fling them about so recklessly, or make his feet twinkle until you lose sight of them altogether in his energy?”2
Although the Illustrated London News insisted that Juba and his African-American counterparts were the only original dancers in the world, white working-class New Yorkers took pride in their own dance styles. Young Walt Whitman noted that when butchers in their market stalls “have nothing else to do, they amuse themselves with a jig, or a break down.” Describing another style of dance popular with native-born whites, the author and critic Cornelius Mathews asserted that there was “more muscle expended in one shuffle than in a whole evening of [dance at] a fashionable party.” Irish immigrants brought their own forms to Five Points, including reels, jigs, and doubles. This last step, wrote one visitor to Ireland, “consists in striking the ground very rapidly with the heel and toe, or with the toes of each foot alternately. The perfection of this motion consists, besides its rapidity, in the fury in which it is performed.” All these styles could be found on display in Five Points’ famous dance halls.3
Master Juba performing in London. Illustrated London News (August 5, 1848). Collection of the author.
Just as boxing promoters purposely pitted Irish versus American or, in later years, white versus black boxers to increase interest in their bouts, theatrical agents organized dance contests between Juba and his “greatest white contemporary,” Irish-American John Diamond. Born in New York City in 1823, Diamond has been called “one of, if not the greatest jig dancers that the world ever knew.” Competing near Five Points at both the Chatham and Bowery Theaters beginning in 1844, the contestants were each paid the enormous sum of $500, indicating that such competitions must have attracted huge crowds. “No conception can be formed of the variety of beautiful and intricate steps exhibited by him with ease,” stated one contest handbill advertising Master Juba’s appearance. “You must see to believe.” The “winner” of these competitions is not recorded. But we do know that such contests, as well as the friendly rivalries between native-born whites, Irish immigrants, and African Americans within Five Points’ dance halls, had a profound influence on the direction of American dance. Each group incorporated favorite steps from their competitors’ dance idioms into their own. In Juba’s case, he adopted some of the high-stepping, foot-stomping style of the jig into his own footwork. It was from this interaction between African Americans dancing the shuffle and the Irish dancing the jig that “tap dancing” developed. Lane, the “most influential single performer of nineteenth-century American dance,” was the key figure behind the emergence of tap. A dance historian reported in 1948 that “the repertoire of any current tap dancer contains elements which were established theatrically by him.” The 1995 Broadway dance production Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk included an homage to Juba.4
The melting pot of dance found in Five Points contributed enormously to Master Juba’s innovations. But like many of the neighborhood’s residents, Juba left Five Points after becoming a star, joining an English dance troupe by 1848. Yet also like many Five Pointers, Juba did not live long enough to enjoy his success fully. Still in London, he died suddenly in 1852 at the age of twenty-seven.5
