Buffalo Dance (1894)

Now the Edison studios were really talking. Having become comfortable with their Kinetoscope, they decided to get interesting. While stuff like "Newark Athlete" is still relatively interesting because of the skill provided, "Buffalo Dance" is not only interesting, it is also very historic. Here, Edison filmed 3 REAL....LIVE....INDIANS doing a buffalo dance. Reportedly, these Indians were called Hair Coat, Parts His Hair, and Last Horse. With it's companion "Sioux Ghost Dance" we get a bit of history in just 16 secs. If you're a historian or film buff interested in the earliest days of cinema, "Buffalo Dance" will prove a pretty interesting watch.

This Edison short got filmed on the same day as "Sioux Ghost Dance", though I have the feeling that that short was the more interesting one. Not just because it was the first (or was it? Guess we can only assume so) but also because of the way how the scene got set up.Thing I didn't liked too much about this short was that it cut right in into the action and the natives are right in the middle of their dance already when the camera gets switched on. The Indians in it also seem to be very aware of the camera, as they are constantly looking up, right into it. The whole movie just because of that doesn't feel very natural or interesting.They again used some real native, that were part of the Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. Unlike "Sioux Ghost Dance", the names of the performers are actually known by their native names Last Horse, Parts His Hair and Hair Coat. Guess all the cool names already were taken when they were born.Not that interesting and also not as renewing or well set up, especially when you compare it to "Sioux Ghost Dance".5/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Well, here's another early film from The Edison Company that depicts something that was popular during that time. In this case, it's the "Buffalo Dance" as we see three American Indians dancing in the Black Maria studio seemingly conscious of being on camera the whole time while two other of their tribe are playing instruments-drums-as accompaniment. They're all from "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show", the one chronicled in Irving Berlin's Broadway show and movie Annie Get Your Gun where Annie Oakley and Frank Butler fight and fall in love. Since this is only a few seconds, my rating is mainly based on how fascinating a document this was and how audiences might have reacted when they watched this on their kinetoscopes-those peepshow machines that you twirl on one side that are probably still available for viewing at Walt Disney World for a penny. I just found this on Internet Archive. Probably the earliest thing I've reviewed here on IMDb.

As one of several features that the Edison Company made of performers from the Buffalo Bill Wild West exhibition, this was probably interesting to its original viewers as a chance to see a more or less authentic 'Indian dance'. As is often the case with the earliest movies, it's of interest now mainly for other reasons.Like the companion feature "Sioux Ghost Dance" made at the same time, this movie shows several Sioux performing one of their rituals for the camera. This "Buffalo Dance" differs slightly in having only three dancers, while two others accompany them with drums.What stands out in this one is the unfeigned interest in the camera that the dancers show, frequently staring right at it. It certainly doesn't seem to fit in with the dance itself, and it looks like an unintended but honest reaction to being filmed - which was just as novel an experience for these Sioux as it would have been for anyone else at the time.These frequent stares at the camera, plus the somewhat artificial background of Edison's 'Black Maria' studio, make it hard to determine to what degree the movie portrays the dance as it would have been done on its own. But it does give this little feature a point of interest.