ring shout

American  

noun

1. a group dance of West African origin introduced into parts of the southern U.S. by Black revivalists, performed by shuffling counterclockwise in a circle while answering shouts of a preacher with corresponding shouts, and held to be, in its vigorous antiphonal patterns, a source in the development of jazz.

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ring-shout British  

noun

1. a West African circle dance that has influenced jazz, surviving in the Black churches of the southern US

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Etymology

Origin of ring shout

An Americanism dating back to 1930–35

Example Sentences

Book examples include Ring Shout, by P. Djèlí Clark, in which the KKK is made up of literal monsters; The City We Became, by N.K.

From Slate

The segment culminates in a ring shout, a call-and-response circle that enslaved Africans developed to preserve their heritage while strategically not offending their white captors.

From New York Times

In February, Simon was at the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the first appearances of his “Four Black American Dances,” a romp through a ring shout, a waltz, a tap dance and a praise break.

From New York Times

The ring shout, he asserted, was “the oldest African American performance tradition on the North American continent.”

From New York Times

He also recorded the McIntosh County Shouters, an African American group from coastal Georgia who performed the “ring shout,” which Mr. Rosenbaum described as “an impressive fusion of call-and-response singing, polyrhythmic percussion and expressive and formalized dancelike movements.”

From New York Times