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Majorettes

Majorette
Occupation
Names Majorette
Activity sectors
Entertainment, dance
Description
Competencies Hand–eye coordination, physical fitness
Related jobs
Cheerleader, dancer

A majorette is a dancer, male or female, doing choreographed dance or movement, primarily baton twirling associated with marching bands during parades. Majorettes can also spin knives, fire knives, flags, light-up batons, and fire batons. They do illusions, cartwheels, and flips, and sometimes twirl up to four batons at a time. Majorettes are often confused with cheerleaders; baton twirling is more closely related to rhythmic gymnastics rather than cheerleading.

Majorettes performed originally a typical carnival dance originating in the Rhineland, where the young women who perform this dance are called "Tanzmariechen" (Dance Mary's) in German or Dansmarietjes in Dutch.

During the carnival the normal form of government is parodied. Also the army and the defense forces were traditionally parodied as a way of protesting the Prussian occupation of the Rhenish area at the time. In Cologne, these imitations arose in particular to make Prussian militarism look ridiculous. And with a joke army that did just about everything, it would make a normal company look ridiculous.

The tanzmariechen show clear origins in the camp followers in the 18th and 19th century, and have a vibrant and eventful past. Around this time Germany had a very large number of armies, and there would be young women in each regiment, who served during the day as a sellers and providers of food and drink and took on household chores like washing clothes. At the same time, many of these women and girls offered themselves as prostitutes, for which they would dress themselves more provocatively, and they would dance for the soldiers.

Around 1800 more regulations began to emerge in the armies. Slowly these were also applied to the camp followers. Increasingly, the camp follower was a woman who was married to a corporal or private, and whose task it was among other things "to wash the linen," according to an old army decision. The camp follower became not a typical army prostitute anymore, but also not a proper married women. Besides caring for the soldiers, she could still continue entertaining them in various ways.


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Wikipedia

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