Josephine Baker - Clearest Close-Up Footage of her Famous Banana Dance

[Famfriass]

LOL....she was shaking it wasn't she??? LOL....

[nickwallacesmith]

@Famfriass - one of the best shakers!

[missasegei]

She was badass!

[nickwallacesmith]

hi missasegei - yep, and in such a good way!

[trboslav]

I am a banana.

[ridovem]

No description required... Lord, Love a bunch of bananas!!! ^..^

[nickwallacesmith]

@ridovem - yes, it speaks for itself!

[MarcBrewer]

Amazing stuff! She has all those bananas and yet every guy in the audience is convinced that she needs one more.

[nickwallacesmith]

@MarcBrewer - LOL!

[brill068]

She was gorgeous and sexy......all that needs to be said!

[nickwallacesmith]

@brill068 - absolutely!

[Ebelientje]

Sexy Josephine back in the days when she was young and beautifull, she knows how to shake that thing

[nickwallacesmith]

hi Ebelientje - she certainly did - shook it with the best of them!

[EdFugg]

Where is @theRedScarebot when you need it? Anyway it's always more fun to connect the dancing with the original music. AND, more... ideological. 

[EdFugg]

"Ideologically"? "Ideologically"?? Are you some kind of commie? Mind you I got my lessons from a lady who danced on Broadway in those days. Was even busted for "lewdness" and wound up on the cover of the Herald. Her brother did the first jazz concert at Carnegie Hall in 1917. If you can find the tomtom music, you need to replace this ideology with factuality. That music needs foxtrotters.

[nickwallacesmith]

hi EdFugg - 'ideologically sound' is a term that's used here both in the right and left wing press - maybe it means something more like 'Red' where you are - it's used just in australia to mean 'morally sound thinking' - and i was using it ironically. i like the original music (as far as i understand it was) but i must say an update is fine for me too - if acting was done in the way it was in the C19 (lawrence olivier aid 'it was like singing) we'd die with laughter. cheers from sydney

[chrisz78]

@nickwallacesmith "if acting was done in the way it was in the C19 (lawrence olivier aid 'it was like singing) we'd die with laughter". So would we? Or rather, would you? It's not shameful to be ignorant, but it certainly is shameful to laugh about things you are too lazy or too intellectually challenged to understand and enjoy. Olivier was but a pale imitation of Irving, and today's "actors" who talk like ordinary clerks aren't even that. Culture ended in 1918.

[nickwallacesmith]

hi chrisz78 - acting styles change - even language changes - if we were to walk about speaking in the language of Shakespeare (declaring loudly that we were maintaining culture) people would die with laughter. having said this i still think John Gielgud (to whom Olivier was referring in that quote) was the greatest speaker of Shakespearean verse - but if his style was used in the theatre today it just wouldn't play.

[EdFugg]

Revisionist! She was moving to those drums. That's quickstep or foxtrot music.

[nickwallacesmith]

hi EdFugg - LOL. yes she may well have been moving to tom toms but i like to think i've made an (interesting?) creative (and for her, ideologically sound) choice. cheers

[TheSunIsBlack]

@EdFugg tell us more sir. you must know a great deal.

[EdFugg]

@TheSunIsBlack Yes, my child, I know many things. Many, many things. Which things do you want to know?

[EdFugg]

This music is all wrong.

[nickwallacesmith]

hi EdFugg - rather than go the obvious path of using 'primitive' music with tom toms banging away (which was done originally for her at the Folies Bergère and which portrayed the dancer as a native or savage) i chose something that epitomised the Roaring Twenties which Josephine exemplified.

[cha53z]

hahahaha its quite funny to think this was sexual in 1925... they should see what sexual is In 2011. loll Artist practically have sex on stage.

[nickwallacesmith]

@cha53z - and funny to think that YT thought the other footage i uploaded of Josephine Baker dancing was 'lewd' and 'infringed our code of conduct' - it was removed! some things never change. cheers

[kangadillo]

That gal could really shake her booty!

[nickwallacesmith]

@kangadillo - she could seriously do that!

[TXejas19]

wow

[nickwallacesmith]

@TXejas19 very wow, cheers!

[TXejas19]

@nickwallacesmith I love it, it doesn't feel as sexual as it looks though. Do you know what this dance is for?

[nickwallacesmith]

hi TXejas19 - yes, it's hard to see it as sexually charged as it might have been when she first performed it in 1925 at the Folies Bergères in Paris - it was originally titled 'Danse sauvage'. cheers!

[TXejas19]

@nickwallacesmith awesome, thank you! :)

[cinnamonbrandylite]

@TXejas19 - that was her thing, though, wasn't it? It wasn't about raw sexuality - it was about naughtiness and mischief. The others would be getting their sultry on, and she'd be crossing her eyes & sticking her tongue out. Give the suckers what they were never smart enough to want...

[TXejas19]

@cinnamonbrandylite your words have expressed my thoughts, where I have failed to do so :)

[cinnamonbrandylite]

@TXejas19 Why, thank you kind sir!  (flutter) (cross eyes) (tongue)!

[TXejas19]

@cinnamonbrandylite lol I'm a woman. Everyone assumes I'm a man, I guess my YT tag name must look manish

[cinnamonbrandylite]

@TXejas19 ooops - then, thank you kind - nope, doesn't work, does it. (cross eyes) (tongue!)

[jlovebirch]

A nice snippet, but still searching for a longer clip that does her justice.

[nickwallacesmith]

hi jlovebirch - me too -not sure more footage of this closeness and clarity exists in the public domain - though this may reflect on my exaggerated view of my research skills - LOL - there is a longer sequence which i uploaded as 'Josephine Baker Famous Banana Dance' but it's at a distance and much fussier - i'm sure you'll have seen this footage about. cheers from sydney

[BalletBabyBoy]

She had her boobs out in Paris...the Puritans couldn't take it here.

[nickwallacesmith]

hi BalletBabyBoy - and i guess it was Prohibition too - all too much for a free spirit like Josephine Baker - good there's film to be able to see what she was like. cheers

[Ozone04p]

@BalletBabyBoy Don't you mean the "psuedo-puritans"?

[bobo4890]

amazing

[nickwallacesmith]

hi bobo4890 - yes, thank goodness someone saw to it that this footage was taken, glad ou liked it.

[pediatrapaola]

nick l am surprised how can you post a this ,some children could watch ,really would be shoked all life jajajaja

[nickwallacesmith]

hi pediatrapaola - jajaja - maybe children these days should be required to wear blindfolds ... when they watch you tube!