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Blues Dancing and its African American Roots
Oral Histories
photo of toni Sherfield
photo of toni Sherfield

Toni Kersey

Born in 1950 in Philadelphia to a musical family, Toni grew up surrounded by jazz, gospel and R&B musicians that may have instilled in her a life-long love of the arts. With her 1972 U of I degree, she worked as a graphic designer and later became a textile artist.

Toni shares her experiences dancing in Philly, from learning to dance from friends and family, going to basement parties, to doing the Slow Drag. Also listen to her relate how students from Philadelphia brought their own dance styles to U of I.

Toni Kersey Oral Histories

  • Blue light basement parties

    Transcript

    Toni: You know when you were a teenager, you know, people had a lot of house parties back then. But, and parents were always in the house, but when they wanted to get a little closer, they always have a blue light that they will put on in the basement. And if somebody knew that the parents was coming down, you turn on the regular lights…

    Toni: Blue light in the basement parties. There was a lot of basement parties as a teenager you didn't really go to clubs and stuff as much. I mean that's I gotta became an older teenager you started doing that more when you would pay to get in but as a younger teenager you went to basement parties.

    Jennifer: And they had them every weekend?

    Toni: Pretty somebody was having one, you know might not be your neighbor or anything might have to go out the neighborhood but somebody was always having a party.

    Toni: Parents were always home at those parties...and they might be partying upstairs, drinking, and whatever but you didn't have a party there's nobody home. That didn't happen. [laughing] And most of the time they were partying upstairs. [laughing] That was fun. Brings back good memories.

  • Music in coming of age years

    Transcript

    Like most people, mostly R&B is what you listen to but I come from a family musician. So there was a lot of different music in my house was a lot of jazz. My mom is a gospel player. My brother was a piano player and he did mostly R&B and some jazz. So I had a pretty wide palette, in terms of what I listened to. But during my coming of age years, Motown was really popular and that's what everybody listened to and that's what everybody danced to for the most part.

  • Dancing as a socialization tool/to meet people rather than the internet

    Transcript

    It was a socialization tool, you know, we would just get together and dance sometimes. Sometimes it would be a party and we would dance. You know, sometimes we get together with friends and dance with each other, you know, like in our dorm room or something like that. Listening to music.

    You pretty much did not dance alone. It was mostly partner dancing. And it was it was how people met. It’s how men and women interacted, became girlfriend, boyfriend, you know, that type of thing as opposed to the internet. You did it at dances.

  • Slow Drag

    Transcript

    Jennifer: Did you do the Slow Drag?

    Toni: Oh Yeah. [laughing] That’s what I forgot. Who didn’t do the Slow Drag? That’s how you met men. [Laughing]

    Toni: That was definitely a couples dance. [laughing] Slow drag was definitely a couples dance. You dance very close together. One arm around each other, the other arm holding your hand. And it was basically a rock. Rock in time with the music. Some people took it far. [lauging] Because it was that kind of thing. But, primarily it was a rock. I'm trying to think of anything else that was distinctive. The girl usually had her head on the guy's shoulder, depending on how tall he was or against his face. You didn't move around the room that much. You were pretty much stationary in the spot that you started dancing.

    Toni: If it was somebody you liked, you would definitely Slow Drag with them. If it was somebody you you’re like ‘uhhhh’ you know, you didn’t want to encourage the wrong thing from the wrong people.

  • Dancing makes me happy

    Transcript

    It makes me happy. It puts you in a space. I mean, I think everybody has this space of transcendence. You know, you're doing something and it puts you over here. It's like an out of body kind of experience, but that's what dance does for me. When I'm in that space, I'm not necessarily connected to me. I'm connected to a broader, sounds crazy right. [laughing] That's all I can say. It just makes me happy.