Josephine Baker Famous Banana Dance

This is recently found hand-tinted footage of Josephine Baker doing her famous Banana Dance on the stage of the Folies Bergères, Paris. Sometime in the 1920's. It was found in the United States, and probably filmed by an American crew for American distribution - given that the costume consists of more than just bananas.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Folies
• Bergères
• Josephine
• Baker
• banana
• dance

[dirtynuke]

WOW. Crazy when you think about how long ago this was.

[nickwallacesmith]

@dirtynuke - yes, she seems to modern!

[NotADood]

It's a trip her influence went so far women still dance like that almost a century later.

[nickwallacesmith]

@NotADood - yep, she loosed things up for woman for decades - great influence

[jpstenino]

A wonderful gem. Thank you. 

[nickwallacesmith]

@jpstenino -- it's great that someone thought to record josephine at her height!

[mzhotniz86]

wow she was really gettin it!! lol that dance was 2 cute. it kind of reminds me of the mystikal video "shake ya a**" lol . she was the original sasha fierce

[cenalover386]

she was the beyonce of the early 2oth century

[MissSheilaBeila]

@Lsepia I agree. I didn't mean it in the sense that it was silly or anything like that. I was just observing that Beyonce took something that's almost a century old, and made it her own. When I watch Josephine's clips, however, I then realized where she got some of her moves. I guess it's no different than MJ using some of Fred Astaire's and Bob Fosse's moves, but we were none-the-wiser as children. We thought it was all MJ's creation. LOL!!

[valkyroo]

a lot of  those are traditional african dance moves

[nickwallacesmith]

hi caroaber - yeah, josephine has been very influential - particular in freeing up dance

[caroaber]

I would suggest that Rihanna may've stolen some of these dance moves for her 2010 American Music Awards opening number ("What's My Name?").