91.5 Chapel Hill 88.9 Manteo 90.9 Rocky Mount 91.1 Welcome 91.9 Fayetteville 90.5 Buxton 94.1 Lumberton 99.9 Southern Pines 89.9 Chadbourn
Arts & Culture
Talk

More Than Just A Cakewalk

WUNC | By Anita Rao,
Frank Stasio
Published November 12, 2014 at 12:02 PM EST
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
1/3
2/3
3/3

In popular culture, the term cakewalk means anything that is effortless and easy.

But the word dates back to a pre-Civil War dance originally performed by enslaved people on plantations throughout the South. The children's book Mirandy and Brother Wind(Alfred A. Knopf/1988) celebrates the cakewalk tradition through the story of a young girl named Mirandy who is determined to catch the wind so that it can help her win her town's cakewalk for the first time. A musical adaptation of the book is now on stage at Raleigh Little Theatre through November 16. 

Host Frank Stasio talks to playwright and adapter Michael J. Bobbitt, choreographer LD Burris, and actors Kwamea Wilkerson and Janice Laurore. 

Here's an archival video of a cakewalk from 1903:

Arts & CultureThe State of ThingsMusicalsAdaptationRaleigh Little TheatreAfrican-American ArtistAfrican-American LiteratureAfrican-American HistoryAfrican-AmericansSlaveryAmerican SouthAmerican HistoryCakewalk
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Anita Rao
Anita Rao is an award-winning journalist, host, creator, and executive editor of "Embodied," a weekly radio show and podcast about sex, relationships & health.
See stories by Anita Rao
Frank Stasio
Longtime NPR correspondent Frank Stasio was named permanent host of The State of Things in June 2006. A native of Buffalo, Frank has been in radio since the age of 19. He began his public radio career at WOI in Ames, Iowa, where he was a magazine show anchor and the station's News Director.
See stories by Frank Stasio
More Stories
  1. U.S. Airborne and Special Operations Museum to open new Cold War exhibit from high school students
  2. New 'American Democracy' requirement could change how college students learn history
  3. Historians present initial findings about enslaved workers who built NC State Capitol
  4. Highlighting the legacy of the U.S. Army’s first all-Black World War II paratrooper unit
  5. A revived Fayetteville nonprofit is low on inventory for its annual bike giveaway