More Info →2024S_2014-26_042103_026

Description

Gang Shows are revue style perfomances put on by Scouts and Girl Guides and involved singing, dancing, and skits. There have been annual performances in New Zealand from the 1950s

This image depicts Scouts in black body stockings and colourful stripped suits with white jackets performing as "Black & White Minstrels". There are a number of scouts dressed as an audience in black face on bleachers in front of the Gang Show-Boat painted on the backdrop. They are performing a skit at the Gang Show 1963

'Black face' or performing as 'Black and White Minstrels' was once a popular form of entertainment in western nations across the globe. With origins rooted in systemic racism, these performances of racial impersonation were usually conducted by Caucasian actors and tended to depict commonly held stereotypes of non-Caucasians as backward or unsophisticated for 'comic' effect.

'Show Boat' is a musical written by Oscar Hamerstein II and Jerome Kern. It is set on a Mississippi River show boat and was first staged in 1927.

Keith Roland Hamblyn was a photographer with the Palmerston North Hospital Board for many years. In a private capacity, he documented a wide variety of public events between 1958 and the early 1970s.

Identification

Object type

Image

Relation

2014-26

Date

August 1963

Digitisation ID

2024S_2014-26_042103_026

Format

Slide