Glossary
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Black Bottom: originated in New Orleans as a stamping, swaying "Negro" dance. The words for the original Blackbottom dance by Perry Bradford in 1919 were "Hop down front and then you doodle back/Mooch to your left and then you mooch to your right/Hands on hips and do the Mess Around/Break a leg until you 're near the ground." Musical Producer George White saw the Blackbottom performed in a Harlem nightclub. White bought the music and introduced it to white audiences in his "Scandals of 1926." The dance was then popularized and modified for the ballroom.
Charleston: Scholars of African dance have traced the Charleston to Trinidad and West Africa. In the nineteenth century, black minstrel dancers danced the "patting Juba," a routine of slapping the hands and the knees, thighs, and body in a rhythmic display. Introduced to Broadway in 1923 in the play Running Wild, its popularity flourished. The independent roles of the dancing couple express the newly emancipated attitude of the "flapper."1,
Shim-Sham-Shimmy: The "Shim Sham" or "Sham" was originally a pre tap-dance routine done by vaudeville performers in the early 1900's and consisted of a mixture of standard steps but done in no particular order. The Shim Sham Shimmy is said to be the creation of Willie Bryant and Leonard Reed and was changed to accommodate a larger group in the theaters they were working at the time, some say around 1927. ,