Annotation:Statue (The)
X:1 T:Statue, The M:C L:1/8 R:Clog S:Ryan’s Mammoth Collection (1883) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:A |: e2 | c'>ed'>e c'>eb>g | a>ga>b c'>ae>c | d>fb>a g>ef>g | a>bc'>d' e'2 e>a | c'>ed'>e c'>eb>g | a>ga>b c'>ae>c | d>fb>a g>ef>g | a2 [e2c'2][c2a2] :| Q:"Andante" M:C L:1/8 e2 | c'4 (a2e2) | (f4 f)(.d'c'.b) | a(e^de) (c'>b) | a6 || Q:"Allegro" M:C| L:1/8 K:E |:g2 | b>^ab>c' b>ge>f | g>fe>c B>gf>e | d>ef>g a>bc'>d' | e'>d'c'>a b2 g>a | b>^ab>c' b>ge>f | g>fe>c B2 (3gfe | d>ef>g a>bc'>d' | e'2g2e2 :| Q:"Andante" M:C L:1/8 (c>d) | e3f e(c'ba) | g2(f2 f)(d'c'b) | (a3e)f2g2 | a6 ||
STATUE CLOG. American, Clog (whole time). A Major ('A' part) & E Major ('B' part). AABB with four measure segues in between. The statue clog was a variety show specialty of the 1870’s and 1880’s, notes New York music researcher Don Meade. It was similar to the pedestal clog, in that, according to the Streetswing Dance History Archives, “the dancer would climb upon a marbled or gilded pedestal (24 inch base) and basically clog or Tap out a routine while posing as motionless as a statue. Henry E. Dixey who used to whitewash himself, was one such dancer that was known as a Pedestal dancer, he would be presented to the stage as a statue on a pedestal in the likes of Apollo or Discobulos. When the curtains parted he would start clog dancing on the pedestal in a statue like motion, only moving the feet and legs.” According to Edward B. Marks (They All Sang, 1934, p. 65), the clogging derived from the Lancashire style clog dance.
Minstrel men had conventions, traditions. All passed through the same species of apprenticeship. They went with the minstrels as boys, for eight or ten dollars a week. Under the unrelenting taskmastership of the Gormans, or Fagan himself, they learned the minstrel dance technique. A man danced clog or “song-and-dance” (soft shoe). If clog, he specialized in either Lancashire, American, or trick. Waltz clog grew out of American clog, statue out of the Lancashire style. “Buck and wing,” says old Tom Barrett, as he reclines on the N.V.A. club mezzanine, “started all the trouble. Buck-and-wing is a bastard dance, made of clogs and jigs and song-and- dance together, and it makes for faking. In a clog, or a sand jig like the one Paddy Hughes did you can spot faking in a minute. Well, now they’ve got no dancing at all, only acrobatics.
One can surmise from the music of "The Statue" that in the held notes of the second and fourth strains the clog dancer was supposed to strike a still pose until the rhythm resumed. The melody also undoubtedly capitalized on association with the Statue of Liberty. Although the entire statue was not erected in New York Harbor until 1886, French sculptor wikipedia:Frédéric_Auguste_Bartholdi completed the head and the torch-bearing arm before the statue was fully designed, and these pieces were exhibited for publicity at international expositions. The torch-bearing arm was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, and in Madison Square Park in Manhattan from 1876 to 1882. Thus there had been ample time to anticipate the completed colossus by the time the tune was printed by William Bradbury Ryan.
