Juba Dance Flashcards
Who wrote the Juba Dance?
Florence Price
Why is she a Trailblazer?
In 1933 she overcame prejudice to become the first black female composer to have her work performed by a major orchestra. This was the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
What musical influences are used in the Juba Dance?
As an African-American woman, Florence Price combined the traditions of classical music with the sound of spirituals and West African rhythms and dance from her own culture.
What is ‘Juba Dance’?
The ‘Juba Dance’ originates in West Africa and was brought over to the United States by slaves who were forced to work on plantations.
Banned from playing musical instruments, these slaves used their bodies to create music instead.
They created repeating percussive rhythms by patting and slapping their arms, legs and chest and stamping with their feet.
This kind of body percussion forms the basis of the Juba Dance that inspired the third movement of Florence Price’s Symphony No.1 in E minor. African drums echo the patting, slapping rhythms as the strings play an upbeat melody.
Price fused two worlds, taking a part of her own musical heritage and reimagining it with a classical orchestra.
What is a symphony?
A symphony is a type of orchestra music often played in four movements or sections. The third movement is usually a cheerful, happy dance.
What does Florence Price use? Juba Rhythms
In her Juba Dance, Florence Price substitutes African drums playing the juba rhythms rather
than body percussion, while the strings play an upbeat melody.
What does Florence Price use? Syncopation
Syncopation involves the shifting of the
normal accent by stressing the normally unaccented beats.
