Earl Snakehips Tucker

Earl "Snakehips" Tucker
Earl "Snakehips" Tucker
Born	August 14, 1906; Baltimore, Maryland
Died	May 14, 1937; New York City
Nationality	American
Occupation	Dancer and entertainer
Known for	Popularized the dance called the snakehips

Earl "Snakehips" Tucker (August 14, 1906 in Baltimore, Maryland - May 14, 1937 in New York City) was an American dancer and entertainer. Also known as the "Human Boa Constrictor", he acquired the nickname "snakehips" via the dance he popularized in Harlem in the 1920s called the "snakehips".[1]

Career

Tucker frequented Harlem music clubs and was a regular at the Savoy Ballroom.[2] He built his reputation by exhibiting his odd style of dance, which involved a great deal of hip motion. Tucker would make it appear that he was as flexible as a snake, and eventually, the dance became his calling card. He became popular enough to eventually perform at Connie's Inn and the Cotton Club. The snakehips dates back to southern plantations before emancipation.[3]

Riding this wave of popularity, in 1930 he appeared in Benny Rubin's 16-minute short film Crazy House, a comedic introduction to residents at the fictitious "Lame Brain Sanitarium". Tucker's 2-minute dance number, performed in a shiny white shirt and shiny, baggy gold pants, displays his amazing dance innovations, his style a precursor to modern street and stage dance.[4] His name appears in the opening credits only as "Snake Hips". In 1935, Tucker appeared in a short film called Symphony in Black: A Rhapsody of Negro Life. The film was inspired by a Duke Ellington composition and included clips of Ellington composing, as well as Billie Holiday singing and Tucker doing the snakehips.[5]

gollark: The option #3 I suggested was to not have multiple users; just let the person using it edit everything and don't try some awful nonfunctional sandboxing implementation like you've made.

gollark: I mean, you could do that; that's option #1. It would be an awful solution. But you could.

gollark: Oh, actually there's option #3: just do single user mode and don't bother stopping editing of "OS" files.

gollark: Well, your current implementation lets them do stuff to OS files, so no.

gollark: I would recommend against #1, because weirdly enough people like being able to write, download and run programs.

References

Jookin' The Rise of Social Dance Formations in African-American Culture Katrina Hazzard-Gordon Temple University Press 1990 pages 122-123
"Earl "Snakehips" Tucker", artsedge.kennedy-center.org, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Hazzard-Gordon, Katrina (1990) Jookin': The Rise of Social Dance Formations in African-American Culture. Temple University Press. pp 122-123
Earl "Snake Hips" Tucker 1930, retrieved 2019-12-24
Seibert, Brian (2019-12-18). "Overlooked No More: Earl Tucker, a Dancer Known as 'Snakehips'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-04-22.

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[1] Jookin' The Rise of Social Dance Formations in African-American Culture Katrina Hazzard-Gordon Temple University Press 1990 pages 122-123

[2] "Earl "Snakehips" Tucker", artsedge.kennedy-center.org, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

[3] Hazzard-Gordon, Katrina (1990) Jookin': The Rise of Social Dance Formations in African-American Culture. Temple University Press. pp 122-123

[4] Earl "Snake Hips" Tucker 1930, retrieved 2019-12-24

[5] Seibert, Brian (2019-12-18). "Overlooked No More: Earl Tucker, a Dancer Known as 'Snakehips'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-04-22.