Delight or Depravity: Lawrence Lecture Examines Cultural Impact of Ragtime Dancing

APPLETON, WIS. -- Noted musicologist Susan Cook will examine the history of ragtime dancing and its social implications as an activity that has often been viewed as dangerous and in need of public control in a Lawrence University lecture.

Cook, associate professor of music at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, presents, "Where Is Your Daughter This Afternoon? Dance and American Culture," Monday, May 21 at 4:15 p.m. in Main Hall, Room 202. The address, part of Lawrence's week-long Women's Music Festival, is free and open to the public.

Ragtime social dancing, which gained mainstream popularity prior to World War I, depended largely upon urban Afro-American music and movements and influenced changes in steps and rhythms of dance of all kinds. Cook will explore the elements of dance, dance music and dancing bodies that have caused its popularity to be termed "crazes" and for its cultural critics to call for its censure. Through slides and musical samples, she will examine dance's contradictory images of liberating freedom and social chaos.

A specialist in 20th-century American music, Cook joined the UW faculty in 1991. She is currently completing a book on the history of ragtime dance and its impact on American culture.