Indian Dance Circle, 1950s
You know kids, when you spend as much time looking at vintage Disneyland pictures as I do, you can get jaded. Photos that might delight a normal person full of hope and laughter will only cause me to scowl and draw the curtains closed so that no sunshine can warm my blackened heart. You know... Jungle Cruise photos that look like every other Jungle Cruise photo. Pictures of the Mark Twain or Sleeping Beauty Castle. I love the actual things, but the photos can get to be mind-numbing.
I often feel that way about photographs of the Indian Dance Circle in Frontierland... but today's examples are an exception! Like this first one, from what I believe was the grand finale of the show, in which all of the children in the audience were invited to hold hands and join in. Even the shy kids could enjoy themselves! The array of fashions is impressive; saddle shoes, floofy dresses, harlequin diamonds, plaids, and my favorite, the "modern art" pattern on the shirt of the boy to the right.
From a different lot comes this picture of the MC, dressed as a traditional Indian Chief (it's what the guests want to see, after all), presumably describing the various dances and their history and meaning to various Native American cultures. "Kelton the Cop" (anybody? anybody?) is making sure that no funny business is going on. I feel safer already.
12 comments:
In the first pic, that little guy in the background sure picked on odd choice in hats for himself. See the reddish/pink hat with the yellow ribbon?
And HOW does that family function with that stroller?!?!? All it holds is a kid!!!
Thanks, Major.
Sue
Major-
You ain't kidding about that first image - it's what Kodachrome was invented to capture.
@ Sue-
'Odd choice'-? A pink and yellow hat - for a small lad-? He's merely a trend-setter.
Thanks, Major.
The little girl wearing the red & white gingham dress, that looks like a tablecloth, catches my eye. She looks like a doll that has come to life. Maybe she knows Pinocchio?
Besides the fashions that you mentioned, Major, there are also stripes and polka dots (and the aforementioned gingham).
That's a nice picture of the "MC". And that's an interesting looking drum on the right. The girl on the left, wearing the von Trapp sailor outfit, is holding a box of something. I'm pretty sure we've seen a box like that before but I can't place it.
"Kelton the Cop" has me stumped. He whiffled over my head.
Sue, I saw that weird little hat, too. It's too small, even for that little kid. And the colors...
Nice clear Dance Circle photos, Major. Thanks.
To borrow a line from a certain 1950s TV show.....if that's the kind of hat that kid wanted, then he sure got a good one!
What if they dragged you down to the dance circle, but you didn't really want to hold hands with a bunch of strangers? I hope they had Purell hand sanitizer stations posted nearby!
......you know, to help control the cooties!
I wonder if interactions like this gave the kids a more sympathetic view of Native Americans than they were used to getting in their daily doses of TV westerns (although even there not all Indians were portrayed as baddies).
Look how small the vegetation on TSI still is. I’m looking for those very old grave markers along that trail, but can’t spot them. I can see the trail, so the markers must be out of frame to the right.
Speaking of clothes, I like the shirt on the older boy in the right of the circle, with the Wild pattern of guitar picks. That strange shape seemed to dominate 50-60’s design, everything from fabrics, to signs and even Formica patterns like my parents kitchen counter. And now it’s coming back. “The Strange Shape From Beyond the Grave”.
And the little girl, lower left in a harlequin outfit in black and yellow. A bold choice.
Sue, how can they survive? No room for an ice chest, or a microwave oven, phone charging batteries, video cameras, or even a sparse collection of plush toys. I predict they will go home before noon.
These are very nice, Major, I wonder if any of these kids remember this day?
JG
Sue, I suppose that hat was red, but it sure looks pink in this photo! Very odd. I do wonder why people nowadays think that they need enough stuff to summit Everest, but… many of them do think that.
Nanook, often I’ll find a group of Dance Circle photos and say “Oh no!” to myself. But that first one is way better than most!
JB, that little girl was surprised when somebody tried to put a hot pizza on her. “I’m not a tablecloth!” she whined. “Mama mia!” said the waiter. I can see it all now, starring Tom Cruise as the waiter (“Jack” Marconi). The box that the little girl is holding is a popcorn box, I have one in my collection somewhere.
TokyoMagic!, I’m not sure how that line would come up in “Father Knows Best”, but OK. And what you don’t know is that the kids were all encouraged to lick their hands before grasping the hands of their neighbors.
TokyoMagic!, cooties are a scan foisted on us by Big Pharma!
Steve DeGaetano, I’d like to believe that the Indian Village helped give guests a more sympathetic view of Native Americans, but I’m sure that it only did so for some. You know, some people, even kids, have thick skulls.
JG, I think some of kids are blocking those grave markers, although my understanding is that they weren’t there for very long, and I’m not entirely sure of the year of that first photo. Perhaps the markers were gone by then. Yes, the “guitar pick” pattern is pretty sweet, very “mid-century” in a cool way. We had a formica table, and some cheap chair with vinyl “cloth” that had a pretty wild pattern, I remember my mom being upset when they started to split. Perhaps some of those kids remember that day, but it surprises me that my niece, who was eight years old when I first took her to the park, barely remembers it, even though she had a lot of fun at the time.
The half yellow/half harlequin outfit looks like something a space kid would wear on the original Star Trek.
In the second picture, the girl in the middy blouse and full plaid skirt looks like her brain sent separate signals to the upper and lower half of her body.
Major-
Earlier, I was so busy checking out the mid-century fashions, I failed to notice the microphone the 'chief' was using. Very little to go by (other than the rather robust 'gray' microphone cord), but it "could" be a Shure Model 535 Slendyne omni-directional dynamic microphone... or not.
Melissa, I was thinking that the harlequin outfit looked like something mom might have made with a McCall's pattern (or something like that)!
Nanook, I thought it was a Mr. Microphone, but I'm probably mistaken.
In the '50s, our mom always made us kids wear our Sunday best when we went to Disneyland. Back then, I think almost everyone dressed up for the park.
I remember dancing in the circle - in those days that area was paved with gravel, which made Frontierland seem more authentic, but it must have been problematic on rainy days. [Notice the unpaved ground under the stroller.]
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