The Games Black Girls Play: Learning the Ropes from Double-Dutch to Hip-Hop

7. Let a Woman Jump: Dancing with the Double Dutch Divas

Let a Woman Jump Dancing with the Double Dutch Divas Though she was long past the age of playing double-dutch, an African American student in the School of Music at Michigan whose voice reminded me of Jessye Norman’s, once shared with me a nostalgic lament she had about the game. I had told Kim a few stories about my trip to the double-dutch competitions in Charleston, South Carolina, and she (in her mid-twenties at the time) admitted that she had never learned how to jump. “Nobody did it where I come from in North Carolina . I feel like I won’t truly be a black girl until I learn to doubledutch .” Her confession was not unusual, and it testified to the power of double -dutch in the imagination of many African American girls; our longing for it is perhaps most expressed by those who were never exposed to it because of geography or other reasons like never getting the hang of jumping double-dutch because they perceived themselves to be too plump or not athletic. Straight, or single rope-jumping, has been prevalent among girls of various ethnicities from North to South. But double-dutch has been primarily a Northern, and urban, form of street play, in which black girls have shined. Though it has figured prominently in the lives and imaginations of African American girls across the nation for at least fifty years, grown women don’t ordinarily play double-dutch. It continues to be viewed by adults of both sexes as a “girls’” game as the rap “Jump Sister Jump” composed by a member of the Double Dutch Divas suggests in its poetry: My daugh-ter said: “Hey, Ma-ma! What’s the matter with you? Isn’t jumpin’ rope on-ly some-thin’ kids should do?” 7 158 Chorus: JUMP, JUMP—, Sister, JUMP! / JUMP! (Ya) JUMP, JUMP—, Sister, JUMP! One, two, three I met the Divas at their weekly rehearsal in Midtown. I hadn’t done the “after-school thing” since high school, but on a chilly evening in October 1999, at the age of thirty-seven, I was introduced to several African American girls ranging in age from twenty-seven to forty-nine who were still jumping double-dutch. On Monday nights, whenever the school system was in session, the Double Dutch Divas held court in the auditorium of Park West High. We are the hard-core— jumpers and we / never fail We jump on— through— the snow, sleet, rain-and— hail Twenty years ago, Vy Higginson, a New York radio personality and producer of the Broadway hit Mama, I Want to Sing, founded a women’s double-dutch group that performed in Central Park. She named it Jump Sister Jump to reclaim the games girls once played. Boys, Higginson recalled , continue to play the games they played in childhood, like basketball , football, and baseball. Girls, however, tend to abandon their games, as well as the athleticism and social bonding that develops through play (Franklin 2000). So she formed Jump Sister Jump with several adult women and what remains of the group lives on as the Double Dutch Divas (with other new members). From July through September on Sunday evenings, they can be found jumping ropes at 72nd Street in Central Park, next to the roller-skaters cruising around a makeshift rink dancing to house music, while a cavalry of drummers improvise on African rhythms nearby. The eldest member of the Divas, Spirit, is the woman who authored the Jump Sister Jump poem, and she has a book full of poetry written for the group. She surprised me when she told me that Jump Sister Jump were the Double-Dutch Girls that accompanied Afrika Bambaataa, Fab Five Freddy, Rammellzee, Grandmixer DST and the Infinity Rappers, the Rock Steady Crew (and various graffiti artists), on the first European tour of rap from New York City, in 1982 (see Adler 1991). There are many expressive dimensions to the Divas: music-making, poetry, dramaturgy, everyday play, and the collective memories (or soLet a Woman Jump | 159 matic historiography) of black dances. All of this is carried on in the name of black female cultural traditions and double-dutch. Whether it’s appearing on ABC’s talk show The View (led by Barbara Walters) or traveling to introduce double-dutch to Japan through televised appearances and workshops, their performance is locked...