steps. The Manchester Guardian remarked, "To us, the most interesting part of the performance was the exact time, which, even in the most complicated and difficult steps, the dancer kept to the music." An anonymous clipping from c. 1848 said, "... the dancing of Juba exceeded anything ever witnessed in Europe. The style as well as the execution is unlike anything ever seen in this country. The manner in which he beats time with his feet, and the extraordinary command he possesses over them, can only be believed by those who have been present at his exhibition." A critic in Liverpool compared his steps to Pell on the bones and Briggs on the banjo. The Morning Post wrote, "He trills, he shakes, he screams, he laughs, as though by the very genius of African melody." Descriptions also show elements of the hand jive in his dance. Juba accompanied his dances with rapid-fire laughter synchronized to the tempo of the dance. An anonymous London critic wrote, [T]here never was such a laugh as the laugh of Juba—there is in it the concentrated laugh of fifty comic pantomimes; it has no relation to the chuckle, and, least of all to the famous horse laugh; not a bit of it—it is a laugh distinct, a laugh apart, a laugh by itself—clear, ringing, echoing, resonant, harmonious, full of rejoicing and mighty mirth, and fervent fun; you may hear it like the continuous humming sound of nature, permeating everywhere; it enters your heart and you laugh sympathetically—it creeps into your ear, and clings to it, and all the subsequent sounds seemed to be endued with the cachinatory quality ... "Well, though the laugh of Juba be wondrous, what may be said of Juba's dancing?" Authenticity Juba's dance certainly incorporated elements of authentic black culture, but to what extent is uncertain. Elements of Juba's style are part of the black dance aesthetic: percussion, variable time signature, use of the body as an instrument, changes in tone and pacing, extreme gestures and poses, and emphasis on solo dancing. Juba may very well have exuded Africa's cool aesthetic: composure and vitality. Historians have ascribed the inability of British critics to describe Juba's style to his use of African-derived forms unfamiliar to the British middle class. White accounts of his performances reflect similar descriptions of slave dances from the Caribbean and the United States. Juba was heir to the