Minstrel show - Music and dance

Music and dance were the heart of the minstrel show and a large reason for its popularity. Troupes marketed sheet music of the songs they featured so that viewers could enjoy them at home and other minstrels could adopt them for their act. Early blackface songs often consisted of unrelated verses strung together by a common chorus. In this pre-Emmett minstrelsy, the music "jangled the nerves of those who believed in music that was proper, respectable, polished, and harmonic, with recognizable melodies."^{See also:}

Minstrel show, Minstrel show - History, Minstrel show - Early development, Minstrel show - Height, Minstrel show - Decline, Minstrel show - Black minstrelsy, Minstrel show - Structure, Minstrel show - Characters, Minstrel show - Music and dance, Minstrel show - Legacy, Minstrel show - Notes

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Minstrel show - Early development. Blackface characters began appearing on the American stage by the late 17th century, usually as servant types with little role but to provide some element of comic relief.[3] Eventually, similar performers appeared in entr'actes in New York theaters and in less respectable venues like taverns and circuses. As a result, the blackface "Sambo" came to supplant the tall tale Yankee and Frontiersm ...

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Minstrel show, Minstrel show - History, Minstrel show - Early development, Minstrel show - Height, Minstrel show - Decline, Minstrel show - Black minstrelsy, Minstrel show - Structure, Minstrel show - Characters, Minstrel show - Music and dance, Minstrel show - Legacy, Minstrel show - Notes

Read more here: » Minstrel show: Encyclopedia II - Minstrel show - History

Minstrel-show characters played a powerful role in shaping assumptions about African Americans. However, unlike vehemently anti-black propaganda from the time, minstrelsy made this attitude palatable to a wide audience by couching it in the guise of well intentioned paternalism.[64] Black Americans were in turn expected to uphold these stereotypes, or else risk white retaliation. Some were even killed for defying their minstrelsy-defined roles. ...

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Minstrel show, Minstrel show - History, Minstrel show - Early development, Minstrel show - Height, Minstrel show - Decline, Minstrel show - Black minstrelsy, Minstrel show - Structure, Minstrel show - Characters, Minstrel show - Music and dance, Minstrel show - Legacy, Minstrel show - Notes

Read more here: » Minstrel show: Encyclopedia II - Minstrel show - Legacy

The earliest minstrel characters took as their base popular white stage archetypes — frontiersmen, fishermen, hunters, and riverboatsmen whose depictions drew heavily from the tall tale — and added exaggerated blackface speech and makeup. These Jim Crows and Gumbo Chaffs fought and boasted that they could "wip [their] weight in wildcats" or "eat an alligator".[40] As public opinion changed, however, so did the Negro stereotypes in minstrelsy ...

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Minstrel show, Minstrel show - History, Minstrel show - Early development, Minstrel show - Height, Minstrel show - Decline, Minstrel show - Black minstrelsy, Minstrel show - Structure, Minstrel show - Characters, Minstrel show - Music and dance, Minstrel show - Legacy, Minstrel show - Notes

Read more here: » Minstrel show: Encyclopedia II - Minstrel show - Characters

The Christy Minstrels established the basic structure of the minstrel show in the 1840s. A parade to the theater often preceded the performance, as it gathered a crowd of potential ticket buyers. The performance itself was divided into three major sections. During the first, the entire troupe danced onto stage singing a popular song and doing a dance called the "walk around". Upon the instruction of the interlocutor, a sort of host, they then arranged themselves in a semicircle and sat down. Various stock characters always took the sa ...

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Minstrel show, Minstrel show - History, Minstrel show - Early development, Minstrel show - Height, Minstrel show - Decline, Minstrel show - Black minstrelsy, Minstrel show - Structure, Minstrel show - Characters, Minstrel show - Music and dance, Minstrel show - Legacy, Minstrel show - Notes

Read more here: » Minstrel show: Encyclopedia II - Minstrel show - Structure