Improvised Dance As Dissenting Mobility in the New Orleans Second Line

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Footwork! Improvised Dance as Dissenting Mobility in the New Orleans Second Line A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Critical Dance Studies by Rachel Carrico June 2015 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Priya Srinivasan, Chairperson Dr. Anthea Kraut Dr. Marta Savigliano Copyright by Rachel Carrico 2015 The Dissertation of Rachel Carrico is approved: _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ _________________________________________________ Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgments The completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without the support, guidance, and generosity of numerous individuals and organizations. Financial support from several sources facilitated the research and writing process, including a Graduate Student Mentorship Program fellowship and a Dissertation Research Grant from the University of California, Riverside (UCR); a Humanities Graduate Student Research Grant from UCR’s Center for Ideas and Society; a grant from the University of California Center for New Racial Studies; a Global South Fellowship from the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South at Tulane University; and the University of California’s President’s Dissertation Year Fellowship. Awards from the Society of Dance History Scholars, the Popular Culture Association / American Culture Association, and the UCR Graduate Student Association facilitated travel to national conferences, where I was able to develop many of the ideas presented in these pages. I also owe significant thanks to the Department of Dance and the Gluck Fellows Program in the Arts at UCR, both of which provided valuable support, financial and otherwise, during my graduate work. Many of the stories, ideas, and points of view presented in the following chapters belong to the incredible people who generously agreed to share their time and knowledge with me. The voices in these pages represent just a sample of the extraordinary individuals who have shaped my thinking about second lining. Thank you to all who consented to interviews: Camille A. Brown, Roderick Davis, Terrylyn Dorsey, Terry Gable, Leo Gorman, Michael J. Hamilton, Harry Jackson, Scott Kolmar, Stephanie iv McKee, Colin Meneghini, Gregory Nogess, Francine Ott, Linda Porter, Brett Powers, Don Robertson, Elsie Semmes, Jordan Shannon, John and Doratha Simmons, Lenwood Sloan, Terrinika Smith, Tyree Smith, Tess Vollmer, Bennalldra Williams, Clarice Young, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, members of the Rebirth Brass Band (Keith Frazier, Phillip Frazier, and Derrick Tabb), members of the To Be Continued Brass Band (Paul Cheenne, Joseph Mays, Edward Jackson, and Tyrone Brown), and Darryl “Dancing Man 504” Young and members of his BrassXcise class (Liz Cajigal, Daisy Camardelle, Samantha Gerlach, Dawn Kaiser, Susan Maye, and Johnny Woodstock). A special thanks is owed to Edward Buckner and the Original Big 7 Social Aid and Pleasure Club; Catina Braxton and the Ice Divas Social and Pleasure Club; Wellington “Skelly” Ratcliff Jr. and the Push for Change Social Aid and Pleasure Club; and Latanya D. Tigner and Dimensions Dance Theater for opening their homes and hearts with generosity of time and spirit. This project is also indebted to the expert guidance offered by archivists and librarians at the New York Library for the Performing Arts, the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Louisiana Special Collections at the University of New Orleans, and the Amistad Research Center at Tulane University. Thanks are especially owed to Bruce Boyd Raeburn and his staff at the Hogan Jazz Archives and Rachel Lyons at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Foundation Archive for thoughtful insight during the project’s early phases. Several groups of people contributed tremendous intellectual labor and emotional support during the research and writing process. The faculty members and my M.A. classmates in the Department of Performance Studies at New York University opened my v eyes to the many dimensions of performance and introduced me to Dance Studies. Although I have not been her student for several years, Barbara Browning’s voice guided me in many phases of dissertation writing. I extend deep gratitude to my teachers in the Department of Dance at UCR—Jens Giersdorf, Imani Kai Johnson, Jacqueline Shea Murphy, Wendy Rogers, Susan Rose, and Linda J. Tomko—whose influences have definitively shaped my thinking about dance, culture, and politics. I am grateful for the thoughtful mentorship offered by Jayna Brown and Rikerby Hinds as members of my exam committee, and for Helen A. Regis, whose pioneering scholarship on second lining has remained a constant source of inspiration, and who has been a consistent supporter, mentor, and role model. Thanks are also due to Freddi Williams Evans, Esailama G. A. Diouf-Henry, Greer Mendy, Matt Sakakeeny, and Kim Marie Vaz for offering important suggestions and questions along the way. I look to these individuals as exemplary models for combining scholarship, social practice, and artistry in New Orleans. Thank you to Jan Gilbert and Kevin McCaffrey, for opening doors and making things possible with the utmost kindness and enthusiasm; and to Cynthia Garza, who took me to my first second line, and has remained a constant friend and dancing/thinking companion ever since. I have benefitted tremendously from the work of my peers, who have viewed and vetted multiple versions of these chapters over the years. The intrepid members of NOW FREE (New Orleans Writers’ Fierce Research Engendering Emancipation) provided invaluable insight into New Orleans history, culture, and politics. Thank you to Heidi Hoechst, Kate Kokontis, Rachel Lee, and especially Catherine Michna, who has been a tireless advocate, indispensible sounding board, and dedicated friend. The suggestions of vi this group have indelibly shaped this document. I am also deeply grateful to Shukrani Gray and Daniella Santoro for their companionship in New Orleans. I thank these women for challenging me intellectually, dancing with me, and most of all for sharing their treasured friendships. I have received dedicated support from the Critical Dance Studies Writing Group: J Dellecave, Hannah Schwadron, and Michelle Timmons Summers. These classmates- turned-colleagues have seen this project grow from exploratory course papers into conference presentations and finally into a dissertation. At every step, they read, debated, line-edited, and discussed my writing with an expert balance of critical engagement and care. I count myself fortunate to have met such a smart and dedicated group of dance scholars and dear friends in graduate school, and look forward to continued collaborations in the years to come. Thanks is also due to the friends and colleagues who have (proof)read drafts and shared their ideas at multiple junctures, in particular, Jamie Coffey, Tara M. Good, Colleen Hooper, Jasmine Johnson, Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, Kara Miller, Vanessa Pierson, Emily Squires, Lindsay Weitkamp, and the participants in the 2013 Mellon Dance Studies Summer Seminar. Most of all, I am grateful to the members of my dissertation committee, who have far exceeded the call of duty. Marta E. Savigliano’s razor-sharp feedback and suggestions throughout the process pushed me to more seriously consider the politics of dancing at every turn. Anthea Kraut’s probing questions, knowing guidance, and caring mentorship has profoundly influenced my research approaches and modes of analysis. Finally, as committee chairperson, Priya Srinivasan provided tireless guidance and leadership that vii did not stop at supporting my goals, but enabled the work to grow in ways that I never could have achieved without her. To Priya, your mentorship has pushed me closer to the becoming the kind of scholar that I want to be, and for that, I am forever grateful. This project has been infinitely bettered by the contributions of these individuals and more; its limitations and flaws are my own. Finally, I owe a tremendous amount of gratitude to my family for always believing in me and supporting my work; if you ever had concerns, I never knew it. Thank you for always reminding me that, no matter how difficult things seemed, I would land on my feet. Finally, to Derek, who can really roll: thank you—for everything. viii Dedication For Wesley, whose life I celebrate and death I mourn with every buck jump. ix ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Footwork! Improvised Dance as Dissenting Mobility in the New Orleans Second Line by Rachel Carrico Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Critical Dance Studies University of California, Riverside, June 2015 Dr. Priya Srinivasan, Chairperson On most Sundays in New Orleans, you can find a second line parade. Since the late-nineteenth century, these processions have gathered thousands of people to dance through African American neighborhoods, improvising footwork in time with the brass band’s rhythms. This dissertation documents and analyzes the role of dance within the second line tradition, and in so doing, brings scholarly attention to a central yet under- studied aspect of New Orleans’s black expressive cultures. Employing an interdisciplinary approach, I combine a close study of historical materials (archival footage, print media, and oral histories) with ethnographic data (participation in the second line community and in-depth interviews with dozens of individuals) to provide a history

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