Josephine Baker - Black is Beautiful

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19-year-old Josephine Baker sensed white fantasies about black people perfectly. Josephine Baker was the center of attention in intellectual circles. The writer Hemingway, the painter Van Dongen, the photographer Man Ray, the architect Le Corbusier, they all loved Josephine. She was a true source of inspiration.

Her first dance performance at the Revue Nègre as Fatou, which was seen by Mondriaan and Van Dongen in Paris in 1925, came as a bombshell. Parisian ladies even copied Josephines hair style.

Her performances were always sold out and her moves already showed the dances of the future: the twist, hip hop and break dance.

Josephine managed to reinvent herself constantly. When critics complained she had begun to repeat herself, she learned to dance on pointe. She was also discovered as a singer.

Her popularity continued to grow. There were Josephine Baker dolls, she was asked to appear in advertisements and she enjoyed fame far beyond Paris.

While Josephine painted her face white and treated her skin with lemon to get a lighter complexion, tanned skin became fashionable in fashionable sea-side resorts thanks to her.

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[josbo51715]

@impatientwithdesire I agree! White women also copied Tina Turner. Then that white woman in gigli or what ever it was called wore cornrolls, everyone acted as if she did something new. Whites rarely create anything thing original. Look at Lady Gaga. She copies everything that Grace Jones did and people go crazy over it. If it wasn't for blacks, whites would still be listening to classical music and dancing ballet.

[CoCoaBeauty5734]

Josephine was a beautiful black women and I do believe she was the first black woman in history to actually marry outside her race not the lovings,loving decission case from the 1960's and they don't put they case in our history books because they want us young ppl to feel that its wrong that's why so many ppl don't support interacial dating and man,I'm a little to smart srry folkz have a blessed day

[Florrezmax]

@josbo51715

So...Josephine Baker didn't get anything out of ballet then?

Watch her closly, rascist.

[Florrezmax]

@josbo51715

Well I think Josephine Baker is gorgeous but your a rasist no better than the other way round. In every bloody hiphop song their is a sample from a rock song or even a classical theme. So whats with this bullshit whites arn't creative?

& the instruments? Guitar, Saxophone, Trombone, Trumpet, Violine, Viola, Piano, Bass Try finding an Instrument which was not developed by a white man.

[CoCoaBeauty5734]

@LobsterPotsticker srry i was a little bit younger on that comment but its in the bible i think moses had an Ethopian wife i think thats right my bible reading and history is a little bit rusty :p lol but thanks 4 correcting me most adults go off on me when im wrong (if ur an adult)

[LobsterPotsticker]

@CoCoaBeauty5734 in history...?

lol i don't think you've included ancient history

[southernbrooklyngal]

I love what grace kelly did for her, love them both!

[lawrencewraith]

play your favorite dance track over her Charleston and it works

[GramosMichalMinecraf]

Black and white are both beautiful even green but please that's just colours. Josephine became famous because the of her brain and the moves and everything she brought to the scene. She was simply unik. And i know , because she was darkskinned made her more beautiful but somehow that's just mean. cause her beauty actually came from the inside. wich all our beauty comes from. so please stop nodest that she was dark skinned she had it bad enough back then when that was everything people saw.stupid

[freepruno]

Same here you close minded prick. she wad an advocate and a brilliant woman and you want to bring up old dance moves she did? Way to pick on some one who's dead.

[The1dailey]

Have some respect for Mrs Baker you Dummy that's the problem with American and why she left America in the first place and I'm leaving to..

[gogoutube]

i know her dance moves were probably breathtaking and revolutionary for her time, but to me she just looks like a retard.