Black Media Reporting on Theater, Dance, and Jazz Clubs in Canada: From Shuffle along to Rockhead’s Paradise

Cheryl Thompson,Emilie Jabouin

doi:10.1177/01968599211042579

Abstract

Canada has a history of de facto Jim Crow (1911–1954). It also has a historical Black press that is intimately connected to Black America through transnational conversations, and diasporic migration. This article argues that Canada’s Black newspapers played a pivotal role in promoting Black performance during a time when they were scarcely covered in the dominant media. Drawing on news coverage from the 1920s through 1950s of black dance, musicals, and jazz clubs this article examines three case studies: Shuffle Along (1921–1924), the first all- Black Broadway musical to appear at Toronto’s Royal Alexandra Theater, Alberta-born dancer Len Gibson (1926–2008), who revolutionized modern dance in Canada in the 1940s and 1950s, and the Montreal jazz club Rockhead’s Paradise (1928–1980), a pivotal site in the city’s Little Burgundy, a Black neighborhood that thrived in the 1930s through 1950s. The authors argue that when Black people were excluded from and/or derogatorily portrayed in the dominant media, Canada’s Black press celebrated collective achievement by authenticating Black performance. By incorporating Canada’s Black Press into conversations about Jim Crow and performance, we gain a deeper understanding of Black creative output and resistance during the period.

Highlights

Canada has a history of de facto Jim Crow (1911–1954)
In 1941 Toronto’s Globe and Mail featured dancer Katherine Dunham (1909–2006) who was set to appear in the city as part of the off-Broadway production of Cabin in the Sky at the Royal Alexandra Theater
When the Globe and Mail editorialized about Dunham’s return performance at the Royal Alexandra Theater in 1948, describing her “Tropical Revue” as “in part constructed from material gathered in Jamaica, Martinique, Cuba and Trinidad where the performers were said to have “learn[ed] the secrets of ritualistic dances” (“Katherine Dunham,” 1948) the association between her movements and the primitive as Other remained

Summary

Introduction

Canada has a history of de facto Jim Crow (1911–1954). It has a historical Black press that is intimately connected to Black America through transnational conversations, and diasporic migration. This article examines Black performance during the 1920s through 1950s in Toronto, Montreal, and Western Canada This period was marked by de facto Jim Crow segregation. By focusing on Black dance, jazz clubs and theatrical performance in terms of Black contributions and as editorialized about and promoted in Canadian newspapers – the dominant media form in the first half of the twentieth century – this article explains the ways in which intraregional and interregional migration impacted the stories that were told about Black performance during this period. There has been a noticeable absence of research on or about Black performance in Canada, as well as in the fields of communication studies and media studies In her examination of African Canadian theater, Moynagh (2005) states, “There is no single way of describing or defining . By comparing the dominant newspaper coverage on Black dancers, theatrical performances, and jazz clubs and the coverage that appeared in African Canadian newspapers, this article aims to elucidate the tension between Black perceptions of Black performance and the representation of Black performance in the dominant Canadian media

Objectives

Findings

Conclusion