This is a single act musical by Will Cook, a composer and Paul Dunbar, a librettist. This musical had a large cast and its dancer-comedian, Ernest Hogan, was the star. Will Cook is best known for his popular songs on broadway musicals. Cook thought “Negroes should eschew white patterns” and try hard to make a culture of their own, creating their own identity, not just copy dancing styles of the white culture. I definitely feel like throughout history, African Americans have done that with dance as seen through the Cakewalk. They made the Cakewalk a simple dance at first and then it evolved into something worldwide today. With that said, Cook had a vision of making the first dance show that had a black only cast on Broadway to help bring identity to the race.
Will Cook
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVoGK9WsqWQ
This video shows a modern representation of one of the songs that Will Cook used in the musical, “Clorindy.”