Oral Histories
Shirley Ajayi-Carroll
Shirley was born in Chicago in 1949 and came to U of I to complete her Master’s in Education in 1974. After teaching in California and Illinois, Shirley eventually went into television production and was instrumental in creating a non-profit program for Chicago Access Network Television that promotes healing through the arts.
Shirley relates a story of how she and her brother entered a dance contest with the hopes of winning a bicycle and how dance helped her during her journey of healing after a traumatic experience. Shirley also contemplates the historical associations she sees between Twerking and the African dances she learned while at U of I and the relationship between the slavery, blues and jazz.
Shirley Ajayi-Carroll Oral Histories
Winning a bicycle in dance contest, learned swing from TV
Transcript
Shirley: When we were young, we wanted a bicycle. Everybody had a bicycle on the block (next door, across the street, the other side of the [street]) but us. And my mom couldn't afford it. So my mom's friend worked with Schwinn bicycle company and they had a picnic. Then they had a dance contest. So me and my brother, if we could do nothing else, we could dance. [Laughing] So we won the dance contest and we got the bicycle. You know, that was my first really good experience.
Jennifer: One bicycle?
Shirley: One bicycle. We took turns. Of course, he was on it more often than I was, you know. Yeah. So, you know, that was my first time really understanding, you know, what dance was really about, you know, you know. Because we really wanted something and so to be able to dance to get it you know that meant something.
Jennifer: What kind of dance did you do?
Shirley: We did the Swing dance. He threw me over his shoulder, under his legs, all around. [laughing] You know, so it was fun.
Jennifer: How do you learn to do that?
Shirley: Watching TV! We used to watch TV, see. We used to see them do it on TV. So that must have been in the late 50s.
Jennifer: Was it the period of bandstand?
Shirley: Yeah, bandstand period. It had to be around that time, right, when we did that. Yeah, because I know there was a lot of couples dancing, but we just was determined to get that bicycle. So we had to out dance everybody else, you know? Yeah.
African origins of contemporary dances – Twerking
Transcript
Shirley: …the dances they do now, the twerk and all that stuff. All that came from Africa, because that's what we used to do back in the 60s. You know, we did that, you know, so, when I saw him doing the twerk I said ‘Oh, they’re doing an African dance,’ you know?
We were doing Ghanaian dance. And we did an awful lot of twerking. You know, the shaking where you, you know, you move that, you know, that kind of stuff. And so when I saw them, this last, what is it, these last couple decades, they started doing the Twerk and I said: ‘MmHmm, that's really an African dance, you know, but they call it the Twerk. I forgot what we called it.
And if you see the African American doing the dance, and then you see the natives from Africa doing the dance, you say: ‘that's very similar.’ You know, it's very similar. So obviously, dance is the thing that was passed down from generation to generation.
When we were learning the Yoruba culture, they said that the butt movement is when you are paying homage to a certain diety, and I think it was Arisha Shango. I remember that part that I learned and I read it in a book. So I said, well, do they know that they are doing that? He said: [laughing]‘No now adays they don’t know that that’s what they are doing.’
Blues Evolving out of Slavery
Transcript
Yeah, the blues they say it came from slavery. And jazz came from slavery. And just, you know, I guess being treated bad Period. But, I mean, any culture could do jazz or could do blues. Because in every culture, there's always mistreatment, as well as being treated right and being treated wrong and relationships. So I think it's a universal thing, you know, but it may have started with the mistreatment of African Americans
Dance to express feelings associated with sexual assault
Transcript
Well, I was sexually assaulted. And I didn't know how to talk about it. So it would come out in my dancing. That was my way of expressing myself. Because, I mean, I could write poetry about it. LIke I was just saying to my daughter, sometimes they would put the music on. And then they will say, just go for it. Whatever you feel, let it come out. And then other times, they would have particular structure dances where you just do the dance, and the music is played with it. But there's a difference, you know, there is a difference in that. So that's why I danced to, to just heal myself, to bring out whatever it is I was feeling. I met some dancers like that, but then most of the ones I've met were more structured. answers, they sort of decided, oh, this is going to be the steps I'm going to do to this music. Whereas the other ones would say, No, this is a song I like and I'm going to dance my feelings out, you know. So, so I think that's what it is and blues. They are dancing out their feelings, you know, this is the way they feel, you know?