try spending Christmas in Jamaica!
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The term 'practice dance' had currency in Jamaica from the 1890s to the 1920s, but was probably originally an import from North America, where it was also in use. I have not so far found any references to the term in social histories etc of Jamaica, so I am posting here the references I have found in contemporary newspaper items. These items seem to show that the term and the events had some significance in the lives of the Jamaican working classes.
Below is an extract from an article by H. H. DeLisser which is very informative, and on 'practice dances 2' there are a number of items from the Gleaner which include the term.
I would be very grateful for any further information on this topic. Please email me.
Joy Lumsden
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Daily Gleaner 1909 11 20 p9
[from article by H G Delisser]
And as you go about the city or the town you will find here and there a house from which the sound of music comes, and in which men and women are dancing, and if you go into a suburb or a lane where the poorer classes live, you will also find dancing going on, though here the polished floor gives way to the hard earth, and for roof one has the sky.
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To marry well, to be buried well, is a wish that is almost universal, and is shared to the full by the Jamaica peasant. But he does not stop here; he wants to do other things well. If he gives a dance he wishes it to be a good dance; and as your cook and coachman cannot afford to make a good dance except at long intervals and on the subscription plan, they call the dances they do have by a name which suggests a compromise with pride. They call them “practice dances”. The theory is that these dances are for learners. But those who attend them are for the most part experts. Yet no one would speak of them as dances pure and simple, for that would be some reflection on one’s social life. A dance must be given in a house, the dancers must be properly dressed, there must be refreshments. A “practice dance” may be given in a yard, takes place every week, and you may go to it in your working clothes. You are formally invited of course. “Ladies 3d., gentlemen 6d.” is an intimation that you cannot enjoy the privilege of attending the dance without paying. Sometimes the legend runs thus: “Gentlemen 6d. Ladies free.” In any case, someone has to pay. The “master of ceremonies” is very explicit and emphatic on that point.
The dancers may number as many as forty or fifty. Three or four storm lanterns hung on nails against the fence and against the side of the low tenement structures light up the scene faintly, and for seats there are boxes and empty barrels about the yard, while a few of the tenants may bring forth chairs for their own personal convenience. The chief musical instrument is a concertina, and the next is usually a mouth-organ; sometimes a guitar is added, and on special occasions there may be a violin, but the violin is rare. The band is arbitrary and insists on having its own way; it only plays what it likes, not what the dancers like, and the latter must needs be content. Is it a waltz? The concertina leads off with a series of rapid shrieks, and in a minute some twenty couples are wheeling around enveloped in a cloud of dust. Shall it be quadrilles? A preliminary flourish of trumpets (please read concertina and mouth-organ) warns the dancers to “form heads and sides.” And you will understand, that all the rules are obeyed: at the beginning of the dance you bow to your partner here as you do in the great ballroom of the Titchfield Hotel, and she curtsies in the manner approved. And continually I hear the command: “through!” “change!” “chasse to your partner!” and in the dimly lighted darkness I perceive the flying forms of men and women, and I hear their laughter, and at the end, their shouts of merriment which show how thoroughly they have enjoyed themselves.
A NATIVE DANCE
And are there no “native” dances? Yes; a dance which came over from Africa and which is to be found, not in Jamaica only, but in all the West Indian islands, on the Continent of South America, and even in Portugal and Spain. It is a phallic dance, a dance in which a frank appeal is made to the passions. Or rather, a dance in which such an appeal may be made, for it all depends upon how you dance it. It consists of slow movements of the body, and the point of perfection is reached when, as in Hayti, the dancer never allows the upper part of her body to move as she writhes and shuffles over the ground. You dance with your partner alone. If you are refined, your motions may be a trifle suggestive – hardly even that. If you are not refined, they may be coarsely, brutally, blatantly vulgar. Known as the mento, the bamboula, the chica, you will find this dance wherever the African was taken as a slave, and you may see it danced in many a West Indian drawing room without the slightest suspicion that what you are hearing, or even dancing, is a sublimated West African phallic dance.
As I am writing these words, I hear a piano in a house near-by playing a Spanish song, “La Paloma” – “the Dove.” The origin of the air of that song is to be sought in West Africa. In Jamaica the dance I speak of here is known in all its many varieties as the “shay shay” ( a corruption of the French chasse) or mento, and every now and then a new dance makes its appearance, no one can precisely tell how.
This mento forms an important musical item in the repertory of the Jamaica peasant, and is invariably accompanied by words. Every one is very like its predecessor, while the song is simplicity itself. And when the song is at the height of its popularity it is sung and whistled all over the island, while the air is played at every “practice dance.”
Once these mentos were danced from one hour to another by the Jamaican peasant. Many a peasant girl refuses to dance them in these days. And they are by no means the staple of any respectable dance-party given by the working classes now. They are popular, but even so, at your open air “practice dance” you will have two-steps and waltzes and lancers in plenty. The lascivious dances of West Africa have taken second place.
I regret to say that sometimes these “practice dances” do not end peacefully. In every crowd there are quarrelsome persons, and where two or three such are gathered together there is certain to be a row. I witnessed a very entertaining fight between four belligerent men at one of these dances one night. As usual, so that no feature of a Jamaica fray should be lacking, three or four of the women shouted “murder!” and then threatened to assist in committing what I thought they were anxious to prevent. Whilst the excitement was at its fiercest, the “master of ceremonies”, who was also the “agent” of the yard, rushed in with the intention of promoting peace and harmony, and, as an expeditious way of achieving his end, he laid about him with a huge stick he held in his hand. Order being restored he addressed the crowd with great dignity:
“See here; you fancy this is a nagar yard, no? Well, I will has you to know that I am a gentleman! And I am not goin’ to allow any nagar noise here. You is dam forward! You come into a man place and you raise you’ voice and want to bring policeman in upon me! In fact, I am not havin’ any more dance here.”
Being a gentleman, he would not listen to any argument. And for quite two weeks he kept his word. Then he relented, for after all, the subscriptions of the dancers were sure.
ENJOYING ONESELF
On public holidays there are great dances held at well-known places in the city and the villages and towns. Flaring placards inform you that “A Grand Unique Star of the West Picnic will take place at Wildman Penn, on Thursday, King’s Birthday: Mr Johnny’s band in attendance. Admission, Males 1/-, Females 6d.” You go and you find hundreds of persons – I saw quite two thousand on one occasion – dancing on the sward and in the shade of the trees.
To be well-dressed at a picnic of this sort a girl will save for months. And she will dance all day until she is perfectly exhausted and wet through and through with perspiration. Then home she will go to talk about the events of the day with her relatives and friends; to relate quarrels, tell of compliments, and to declare how “I enjoy meself.”
For more on 'practice dances' click on the link below:
click here for practice dances 2