Cake Walk

Nearly half a century ago, because my mom had listened, watched, and heard about some vaudeville routines growing up, I learned a few of these things from her.  The only song she could remember was "Oh Dem Watermelons" (which had to be pried from her lips). 

She was strangely freer when sharing a few dance moves.  Because my grandmother was a dancer, my mom inherited a love of movement as well, and she could recall the original "Jazz" dance from WWI, the Charleston, the Lindy, and, amazingly, she knew some of the moves from the Cake Walk, which she imitated one afternoon after much encouragement and prodding.  The high stepping.  The "wing movements".  Everyone I knew was out collecting these words and movements, some of which would find their place once again onstage in performance.  Later, people of an artistic bent wanted me to retrieve any of the melodrama skits from my only repository of Vaudeville performance with the idea of breathing life back into some of these.  Aside from one joke I could only partially recall about The Bear and Mrs. Bear, I declined to pursue this theatrical research for several reasons.  Also because the very medium of melodrama meant "playing to the audience" as the script, actors, and audience knew who the bad guys were and were ready to hiss and boo loudly on cue.  Not my cuppa.

(My mom did a slower version, more like the one below)