What’s A Juba?
A Juba Dance, also known as “pattin juba” or the hambone originated in West Africa around 1840 and was first brought by slaves to Charleston, South Carolina.
It is a fast-paced dance that involved stomping, slapping and patting the arms and legs, chest and cheeks. This plantation dance with the use of “pattin juba,” or now what we call “body percussion,” was performed when instruments weren’t allowed because of the fear that secret codes could be hidden by the slaves in the drumming.
The Juba Dance would have a circle of men around two men in the center. They would perform various steps in a call and response – the two men would improvise a response to the call of the other dancers in the circle. There would be a steady, fast-paced beat with a repeating rhythm called an ostinato with improvisation and shuffle steps above it.
Juba Dance is the 3rd movement of the Symphony No. 1, completed by Florence Price in 1932 and first performed by the Chicago Symphony in 1933. In her Juba Dance, Florence Price substitutes African drums playing the juba rhythms rather than body percussion, while the strings play an upbeat melody.
