Challenge Dances
In the 1840s, Diamond began a series of challenge dances wherein he dared his rivals to best him in a contest of skill. Diamond publicized his challenges in popular newspapers. Such trials usually had three judges, one who judged time, one style, and one execution. A typical challenge read:
Master Diamond, who delineates the Ethiopian character superior to any other white person, hereby challenges any person in the world to trial of skill at Negro dancing, in all its varieties, for a wager of from $200.00–$1,000.00.
Diamond won match after match in city after city, and his fame grew exponentially. He earned a host of imitators and copycats, many of whom took his name and pretended to be him.
After their inamicable split, Barnum had replaced Diamond with a young, unknown black man named William Henry Lane. The new protégé took the stage name "Master Juba" and centered his act on imitations of "all the principal dancers in the United States", followed by his own style. Diamond was always the last dancer Juba imitated, as the Irish-American was Juba's only real rival.
Diamond and Juba's war of steps reached a fever pitch when the two agreed to a challenge dance against one another. A series of widely advertised Diamond–Juba dance-offs followed:
Excitement among the Sporting Community—Match between John Diamond and Juba.
The favorites are now the dancers, and he who can cut, shuffle, and attitudanize with the greatest facility is reckoned the best fellow and pockets the most money.
Match dances are very frequently got up, and seem to give general satisfaction, if we are allowed to judge from the crowds who throng to witness them.
We have not had a real, scientific, out-and-out trial of skill since that between Dick Pelham and John Diamond at the Chatham; but it appears we are soon to have another of these refined and elevating exhibitions.
A match has been made between John Diamond and a little negro called "Juba," by some of the sporting community, and is to come off in the course of a few weeks. The stake is large, and an unparalleled display will be the result.
The Diamond–Juba dance-offs continued through the mid-1840s. Existing records show that Diamond lost all but one.
Read more about this topic: John Diamond (dancer)
Famous quotes containing the words challenge and/or dances:
“The only use of an obstacle is to be overcome. All that an obstacle does with brave men is, not to frighten them, but to challenge them.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“We have dancing ... from soon after sundown until a few minutes after nine o’clock.... Occasionally the boys who play the female partners in the dances exercise their ingenuity in dressing to look as girlish as possible. In the absence of lady duds they use leaves, and the leaf-clad beauties often look very pretty and always odd enough.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)