Ida Forsyne

Ida Forsyne (January 1, 1883 – August 19, 1983), sometimes seen as Ida Forcen, or Ida Forcyne, was an African-American vaudeville dancer who toured in Europe and Russia before World War I. Professionally she was known as the 'Queen of the Cakewalk'.

Early life Ida Forsyne was born on South Side, Chicago, Illinois in 1883, and raised by her mother. The family lived across the street from the Alhambra Theater so Forsyne would watch shows from the fire escape, she recalled in an article in 1953. By age 14, Forsyne ran away to join a tab show called the Black Bostonians Coon Town 400. She sang a lullaby called "Drowsy Babe" as a duet with performer Rosie Grayson. Forsyne was stranded in Montana when the show ran out of money, and her mother arranged for her and one other performer to be sent home.

Career In 1898, at age 15, Forsyne joined Sissieretta Jones in Black Patti's Troubadours when they were in Chicago, as a dancer. She next worked in shows in New York and New Jersey. and by 1904 had a solo act in The Southerners, the first interracial musical show, headed by Will Marion Cook. In 1906, she was featured with the Tennessee Students, and with them toured Europe, sometimes billed as "Topsy." Forsyne was the billing star with her picture on the front of the program. In London at the Alhambra Theater, Forsyne introduced her sack dance, in which she danced in a potato sack in front of a chorus line of ballet dancers in blackface. and was hailed the "greatest Russian dancer of them all." Although Russian style dancing was done before her in the United States’ vaudeville circuit, Forsyne brought it to the forefront.

She stayed abroad until just before World War I in 1914.

By the time she was back in the United States, she was in her thirties, her Russian dancing quickly went out of style. and Forsyne found it difficult to gain dance jobs. In addition to age, she believed her darker skintone was a barrier to employment, even in all-black shows, what she called "Black prejudice."

From 1920 to 1922, Forsyne worked as a personal maid, both onstage and off stage to vaudeville performer, Sophie Tucker. In the 1960s, Forsyne was interviewed by oral historians of dance, Marshall Stearns and Jean Stearns. Forsyne was active with the Negro Actors Guild in her later years.

Forsyne had three husbands: James Frank Dougherty, Usher Henry Watts and Arthur Belton Hubbard.

Ida Forsyne died at age 100, in a nursing home in Brooklyn, New York.