Footage of Horace Sprott performing the "Buck Dance": Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A 16mm film print with people dancing to skiffle music and Horace Sprott doing the buck dance. It consists of a single reel of positive, black-and-white, 16 mm acetate film with bilateral variable-area optical sound. In the film, women and children can be seen watching men doing the buck dance as various percussive instruments are heard in the background. Voiceover narration accompanies the picture. At one point, the narrator says, "They call it skiffle music. Step dancing goes back to the formal dances held in the big house on the plantations, from polished floors to bare earth. The buck dance, there are few who can do it well.” Men and women dance in an open field as the narrator speaks. The women leave the field and the narrator continues with "The buck dance is the exclusive property of the male dancer, a sort of show-off piece in which he exhibits masculine strength and prowess." Four men remain in the clearing: two of them clap their hands and stomp their feet, while a third plays a guitar. The fourth man, Horace Sprott, demonstrates the buck dance. At one point, the men say, "now wag your tail" and Sprott mimics the movement. Their audience laughs. At the end of his performance, Horace Sprott makes and inaudible comment, then says, "I've travelled all around," to which the narrator responds, "And Horace did travel around. It was in traveling that the music really picked up a new dimension, just as men had come into town after emancipation and found others with whom they could talk, the music…" The film ends before he completes the statement.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: mid 20th century
• Subject of: Horace Sprott, American, 1899 - ca. 1992
• Owned by: Ernie Smith, American, ca. 1925 - 2004
• Type: sound films
• Type: black-and-white films (visual works)
• Type: 16mm (photographic film size)
• Type: film clips
• Medium: acetate film
• Dimensions: Duration (digital file): 00:06:00
• Dimensions: Physical extent (film): 280 ft
• Place depicted: United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: American South
• Topic: Dance
• Topic: Film
• Topic: Folklife
• Topic: Jazz (Music)
• Object number: 2015.275.30.1a
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Anonymous Gift in memory of Ernest (Ernie) R. Smith, Jazz Historian
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: Restrictions likely apply. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.