The pas de l'ours, first known by its English name grizzly bear, is a couple dance that emerged in the United States around 1910 and achieved international popularity until the outbreak of the First World War. Its name refers to a stylized and parodic imitation of the swaying gait of a grizzly bear, as well as to the close embrace of the dancers and movements likened to the animal's paws. Performed to ragtime music, the pas de l'ours belongs to a group of early 20th-century American animal dances that shared a taste for fantasy and marked a departure from established social dance conventions. Characterized by syncopated movements, improvisation, and a playful tone, the dance quickly attracted a wide audience. At the same time, it provoked controversy: critics associated its movements with moral laxity, viewed animal imitation as a form of regression, and, in some cases, called for restrictions or bans on public performances. Such reactions were often reinforced by claims that the dance originated in African American communities of the San Francisco underworld. As a result, the pas de l'ours was frequently described as vulgar, a label that sometimes carried racial connotations.
From 1911 onward, several songs by Irving Berlin, notably The Dance of the Grizzly Bear and Everybody's Doin' It Now, played a significant role in popularizing the dance. It initially spread among young immigrants, for whom it could serve as an expression of American identity, before being taken up by high society, which often regarded it as a novelty. Beginning in 1912, this popularity prompted opposition from reform movements, particularly those concerned with safeguarding young women from perceived moral risks. In parallel, dance professionals such as Vernon and Irene Castle promoted efforts to standardize and refine ragtime dances, seeking to remove elements they considered excessive—features that were nonetheless central to the character of the pas de l'ours.
In 1912, the pas de l'ours also gained visibility in France as part of a broader enthusiasm for new dances, supported by performers such as Gaby Deslys and Mistinguett. It was adopted by Parisian high society, which often appreciated its comic aspects, as well as by working-class environments and avant-garde artistic circles. This reception took place within a context of American cultural fascination that included admiration for African American figures such as boxer Jack Johnson, who enjoyed considerable notoriety in Paris at the time. Contemporary film productions provide evidence of this enthusiasm. These varied forms of appropriation of a dance perceived as exotic were interrupted by the First World War but anticipated developments that would later reappear after the armistice, particularly during the vogue of the Foxtrot and the tango.
Ragtime dances
The was one of several dances practiced in the United States between about 1910 and 1913 to ragtime music, a term that originally referred to "ragged time". These dances belonged to the category of closed-couple dances, in which partners remained in physical contact, holding one another with both hands or arms.
Ragtime is characterized by syncopation, displaced accents, and rhythmic shifts set against a steady bass pattern. This rhythmic structure influenced the dances performed to it, which were generally based on walking steps that allowed for numerous variations. Dancers could play with the musical structure through foot placement and bodily accents, modify their speed of execution while moving, or introduce visible contrasts to the regular bass line through movements of the arms, shoulders, and hips.
The emergence of ragtime dances followed the diffusion of ragtime music beyond African American communities during the first decade of the 20th century, particularly into venues associated with popular entertainment and nightlife. This spread was accelerated by music hall performances, including minstrel shows. Reconstructing ragtime dances as they were originally practiced by popular audiences is difficult. Rather than existing as a single fixed or authentic form, these dances were generally spontaneous, evolving, and informal, marked by playfulness and by early hybridization that combined elements of African American cultural practices with influences from European traditions. Dance terminology was not standardized during this period. A step referred to as the in one city might be called the or in another, with these terms sometimes used interchangeably for the one-step.Linda Tomko, "Reconstruction: Beyond Notation", International Encyclopedia of Dance, v. 5, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003.Richard Powers, "Ragtime Dance", in Charles Hiroshi Garrett, The Grove Dictionary of American Music, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013.
An article published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in December 1911 compared the to belly dance (then referred to as ) and highlighted features associated with the animal from which the dance took its name, including swaying hips, steps performed with the feet turned outward, and a "bear-like embrace". Another article from the Richmond Palladium, also published in December 1911, suggested that the name could be misleading, as it implied a "hugging match", even though the dance could, in principle, be performed in a restrained manner. The article nonetheless identified bodily movement as a central concern, particularly lateral hip oscillations and forward rocking of the torso and abdomen.
In the same month, Marguerite Moers Marshall, writing in The Evening World, similarly argued that the grizzly bear might be danced in a socially acceptable way, but criticized the close physical proximity of some couples, their lateral hip movements, forward thrusting of the torso or abdomen beyond a normal posture, and wriggling of the trunk, which she described as giving the dance an indecorous character. Other articles adopted a more ironic tone. According to the Chicago Inter Ocean, dancers simply embraced, spun, and wriggled body to body in time with the music, likening themselves to a captive grizzly bear. For The Baltimore Sun, the was described less as a dance than as a wrestling match, in which each partner maneuvered to control the other through various holds.
Animal dances
The grizzly bear and other ragtime dance steps popular in the United States in the years preceding the country's entry into the First World War are commonly grouped under the label animal dances, a term derived from the animal names assigned to them. This group includes dances such as the turkey trot, the bunny hug, the , the , the , the , the , the , the , the , the , the , and the . The breadth of this repertoire has been described as a "zoo", reflecting both the popularity of such dances and the rapid turnover of fashionable steps presented as new variations.
The animal-based names primarily reflect the imitative and playful qualities of the dances. In the case of the , this imitation involved movements associated with a bear, including pronounced lateral swaying, bent knees, a close embrace with partners positioned chest to chest and arms resting loosely on one another's shoulders, and the curling of the fingers to suggest claws.
Many historians interpret the emergence of the and animal dances more generally as the outcome of a dual process of hybridization. On the one hand, changes in African American social practices associated with urbanization, migration to the Northeastern United States, and the transformation of leisure venues contributed to shifts in dance style, including a more upright posture, abandonment of barefoot dancing, increased individualization of movement, and heightened sexual connotations of gestures.Katrina Hazzard-Gordon, Jookin' : The Rise of Social Dance Formations in African-American Culture, Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1990, p. 94. Through contact with European dances, notably the waltz, African American dance forms incorporated reduced emphasis on contact with the ground and a stiffer torso, while maintaining a strong role for improvisation in adapted versions. On the other hand, white dancers simultaneously appropriated selected elements of African American dances, particularly through practices such as , which transformed African American dance venues into destinations for white audiences and encouraged proprietors to adapt performances to the expectations of this clientele. Scholars have noted that, during this period, African American music and dance were widely appropriated by white-controlled entertainment industries, while Black performers were often excluded from recognition and economic benefit. Instructors who codified or "sanitized" animal dances were frequently credited as their creators, whereas the Black dancers who transmitted these practices remained largely unacknowledged. As Éliane Seguin observes, moreover, the stigmatization of ragtime dances as immoral or obscene, and their association with African American culture, does not necessarily imply a dominant African American origin; at the time, even limited elements drawn from Black culture were sufficient, under the one-drop rule, for dances to be perceived as "Black dances".
Social changes
Several authors, following Kathy Peiss, situate animal dances in general, and the in particular, within broader changes in social dancing practices in the United States from the late 19th century onward. These changes accompanied the rise of a culture of dance halls (), which offered young wage-earning women new opportunities for social interaction outside family and neighborhood networks and contributed to evolving attitudes toward leisure, sexuality, and personal fulfillment.
These new forms of entertainment, less constrained by kinship ties and traditional supervision, were encouraged by the spread of collective housing () and by the emergence of , clubs or amusement societies operated for profit through alcohol sales and characterized by limited oversight of admissions. Their popularity led to the multiplication of increasingly large dance halls, which often functioned as dance academies during the day and hosted social events in the evenings and on Sundays. Unlike earlier social settings, these venues did not promote intergenerational mixing and instead relied on instructors who demonstrated the latest fashionable steps.
The expansion of such dance halls, where young women of modest means were admitted at reduced prices and where comparatively relaxed moral codes prevailed, was viewed with concern by observers from higher social classes. Within a broader media climate marked by anxiety over the so-called white slavery, these venues were often portrayed as encouraging prostitution. This moral panic contributed to the passage of the Mann Act in 1910.
Although the waltz, widely regarded as a marker of respectability and subject to careful codification, was among the dances taught in these academies, and although the dances performed in dance halls by working-class women were derived from it, their execution often differed substantially from the formal model.
Young women dancing in these venues generally did not adhere to the aesthetic ideals associated with the waltz, such as grace, elegance, and refinement. Instead, they favored the , a slang term designating a closely embraced couple turning and moving in small circles. The posture of spiel dancers contrasted with that of waltzers, often appearing rigid, particularly in the leading arm, which was thrust forward rather than held in a rounded frame. Female practitioners were known as , a term attested from the late 19th century and originally used to describe a street dance performed to the accompaniment of a barrel organ.