Blues dancing is a family of historical dances that developed alongside and were danced to blues music, or the contemporary dances that are danced in that aesthetic. It has its roots in African-American dance, which itself is rooted in sub-Saharan African music traditions and the historical dances brought to the United States by European immigrants. Mura Dehn used the term "The Blues" in her documentary The Spirit Moves, Part 1, as the sub-section title of Chapter II, referencing different dance styles. African-American essayist and novelist Albert Murray used the term "blues-idiom dance" and "blues-idiom dance movement" in his book Stomping the Blues. History of blues dancing Background Blues dancing originated in the dances brought to America by enslaved Africans, who followed sub-Saharan African music traditions. There is no documented evidence across the history of pre-colonial sub-Saharan African dance for sustained one-on-one mixed-gender partnered dancing; African cultures apparently considered this type of dancing to be inappropriate. Slavery in the United States had a great deal of influence on African-American dance, as people from widely disparate African cultures were thrown together during enslavement. As a result of this, their specific cultural traditions, including dances, were often lost or blended into a creolized African-American dance style. This dance style was also influenced by elements of British-European dances brought to the United States by European immigrants. Dance moves were passed down through generations of African Americans, revised and reworked, ultimately resulting in a specific African-American dance vocabulary. Over time, African-American dance became more formal than its African predecessors, but more energetic and dynamic than European dances. During the post-Reconstruction period of approximately 1875–1900, as Jim Crow Laws were passed in the American South, dance steps began to lose their association with religion and spirituality and became thought of as purely secular. The dances of working-class and lower-class black people relinquished some of their Euro-American characteristics. Dances in this era became associated with the expression of pleasure and sexuality with one's partner, and the importance of community was de-emphasized. The African style of dancing while bent over moved towards a more upright stance. Development of blues music W. C. Handy, who wrote some of the first published blues songs, documented an early experience he had with blues music at a dance that took place in Cleveland, Mississippi, around 1905. A local band consisting of three Black men with battered string instruments played a "haunting" song: