Earl “Snake Hips” Tucker: The King of Hip-Hop Dance?
Could a man nicknamed “Snake Hips” whose erotic pelvic tilts and twirls shocked Harlem audiences in the mid-1920s be a forefather of today’s hip-hop dance revolution? Hip-hop seems so now; could it have roots that reach deep into the culture and history of Afro-Cuban-American movement? In an effort to locate the beginnings of this modern day phenomena, the story of one man who appeared almost from nowhere may hold one of the keys to a history of hip-hop dance.
“Little is known about Earl Tucker’s personal history,” said Barbara S. Glass, author and retired Ohio State University professor. “It’s believed that he came from Maryland and performed at Connie’s Inn in Harlem in New York City before appearing at the Cotton Club.” Rumors about his rough personality and mysterious past have persisted and shadowed his reputation since he became known among dancers. Nonetheless, he is listed as a forerunner of the contemporary hip-hop dance.
Those who witnessed Tucker’s signature dance just after the turn of the 20th century and tried to describe it were usually at a loss for words. What Tucker performed was a “modernization” (for the Roaring Twenties) of an African folk dance known as the Snake Hips. But like today’s hip-hoppers, Tucker performed his own interpretation of the dance, creating a unique version of the dance.
Tucker made popular a “torso dance,” adding theatrical elements to the Snake Hips that left some viewers speechless. “I prefer to call it a whole body dance,” said Glass in a telephone interview. Indeed, it is reported that many critics ignored Tucker in the beginning of his career simply because they didn’t know what to say. The same happens to many dance audiences as today’s hip-hoppers continue to push the movement and emotional envelopes beyond what words can describe.
Tucker would enter the stage with a sliding step before the music started and pose in his black bellbottomed trousers, loose white silk shirt, and wide belt (sometimes with a tassel on the buckle). Audiences held their collective breath waiting for him to start. He began with slow, controlled, polyrhythmic actions that made him appear disjointed from head to toe when really it was a superior ability to perform several isolations at the same time.
“At first, it looked simultaneously pigeon-toed and knock-kneed,” explains authors Marshall and Jean Sterns in their book Jazz Dance, The Story of American Vernacular Dance (1968.) When his whole body was engaged in a slithering, writhing, hypnotic symphony, Tucker would stop and cover his face with an arm, giving the audience a moment to breathe before starting a whole body tremor that caused viewers to erupt in excitement. From Harlem nightclubs, Earl “Snake Hips” Tucker appeared in several Broadway shows and then Hollywood musicals dancing to the tunes of Duke Ellington. Ellington even wrote a song especially for Tucker’s exotic and exuberant dance.
By 1931 tap dancing and exotic feature dancers like Tucker could no longer carry the show on Broadway. The black musical lost its shining place to George Balanchine’s “On Your Toes” (1936) and “Oklahoma” (1943) choreographed by Agnes de Mille, as ballet became the focus of Broadway and then Hollywood. Tucker continued to perform in nightclubs but died at a young age in 1937. His dance innovations were copied by many and adopted into the standards of several different dancers and styles from belly dancing to rock and roll.
The Stearns recount a possible story about how Tucker got his first job in New York. When asked what he could do by Irving C. Miller at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, Tucker supposedly hissed, “Lissen, man, my name is Snake Hips. I dance, and if I don’t stop the show you can fire me.” After a demonstration, Tucker was hired. He didn’t stop the show, but in a sense he just might have started the one we are watching today when we admire the amazing directions, dimensions and possibilities of hip-hop dancing.
Resources: African American Dance, An Illustrated History, Barbara S. Glass, McFarland and Co. Inc., Jefferson, NC, 2007. Jazz Dance, The Story of American Vernacular Dance, Marshall and Jean Stearns, Schirmer Books, New York, 1968.
Send comments to: Joy Held, yogajoy@suddenlink.net.