Sanding (dance)

Sanding, also known as sand jigging or sand dancing, is a type of dance performed as a series of slides and shuffles on a sand-strewn floor. In some instances, the sand is spread across an entire stage. In other cases, it is kept in a box that the dancer stays in throughout the dance. Originally a soft-shoe technique, scratching in sand can also add a different texture to the percussion of tap. There is no one type of shoe used to sand dance; traditional tap shoes are used alongside soft shoes and leather boots, all creating a distinctive sound. Willie "The Lion" Smith said of sanding, "You could really hear and feel the rhythm when the dancers shuffled around in a nice pair of patent-leather shoes".

The early history of sand dancing is obscure but it seems to have developed as a variant of what in the 19th century was known as "jig dancing" or, more precisely, "straight jig" dancing (to distinguish it from Irish and Scottish dances in 6/8 time). As with other forms of variety theatre and minstrel show dancing, straight and sand jig technique developed as white dancers familiar with Irish or British jigs, reels and hornpipes tried to emulate the steps of African-American dancers whose style had pronounced African roots.

The most prominent stage sand dancers of the mid- to late-19th century were two white New Yorkers: Kitty O'Neil and her rival Kitty Sharpe. Sharpe learned the dance from the Hawley Brothers, a blackface minstrel dance team, but her performances, like those of Kitty O'Neil, were not done in blackface. White male sand dancers in minstrelsy, variety or vaudeville did, however, frequently don blackface. This practice was recreated in the 1951 film Yes Sir, Mr. Bones, in which the veteran minstrel Ned Haverly (of Haverly's United Mastodon Minstrels) performed a sand dance as a grotesque caricature of an African American.