- Related Topics:
- dance
- Charleston
- jitterbug
- slow drag
- eagle rock
jazz dance
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What is jazz dance?
Jazz dance is any dance form that is matched to jazz music. It originated in Black American society and gained popularity during the swing era in ballrooms.
Jazz dance includes a wide range of styles, from early 20th-century African American social dances like the Lindy Hop and Jitterbug, to choreographed dances incorporating techniques from ballet or hip-hop. Early jazz dances share common elements with Caribbean and African dances. The spirit and style of social dancing altered radically, becoming vastly more free, relaxed, and intimate through the following decades.
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Where did jazz dance originate?
Jazz dance originated within Black American society, mirroring the birth and spread of jazz music itself. It is any dance to jazz accompaniments and includes a variety of forms. The term can describe popular stage dance, excluding tap, and jazz-influenced modern dance, but it excludes social dances lacking jazz accompaniment.
Jazz dance evolved from 19th- and 20th-century stage dance, Black social dances, and white ballroom dances. Minstrel shows in the 19th century developed tap dancing from Irish jigging, English clog dancing, and African rhythmic stamping. Social dances, such as the cakewalk and shuffle, became popular vaudeville acts and appeared in Broadway revues.
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What are some basic movements or steps in jazz dance?
Jazz dance is any dance to jazz accompaniments and consists of many forms. It radically altered the style of American and European stage and social dance in the 20th century and paralleled the birth and spread of jazz itself from roots in Black American society.
Some basic movements and steps include the Charleston, characterized by its toes-in, heels-out twisting steps, and the jitterbug. The Charleston is a social jazz dance highly popular in the 1920s and frequently revived. In the basic step, the knees are bent, then straightened, as the feet pivot in and out. Weight shifts from one leg to another, as the free leg kicks out from the body at an oblique angle.
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How is jazz dance different from ballet or hip hop dance?
Jazz dance, emerging alongside jazz music in the Black American community, is distinct from ballet and hip-hop in its origins and style. Unlike ballet, which relies on a strict, formalized technique with turned-out positions and emphasis on vertical lines, jazz is characterized by improvisation, syncopation, and a fusion of African and European elements. While ballet often seeks to conceal effort, jazz embraces individual expression and a conversational relationship with the music.
Hip-hop, originating in the South Bronx in the late 1970s, encompasses deejaying, rapping, graffiti, and B-boying (break dancing). Jazz dance incorporates techniques of earlier jazz dances, and often those of other styles of dance, such as ballet or hip-hop.
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What kinds of music are often used in jazz dance performances?
Jazz dance performances feature a variety of music styles, all rooted in the traditions of Black American society. Early jazz dances were often accompanied by jazz music, including forms like the Lindy Hop and jitterbug. As jazz dance evolved, it incorporated techniques from other styles such as ballet and hip-hop, reflecting the constant stylistic evolution of the genre. The dancer's conversational relationship with music, especially music that swings, shapes creative ideas and movements, emphasizing the importance of jazz music structure and its rhythmic impulse. The growth of radio, television, and recordings greatly aided the diffusion of these dances.
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How has jazz dance influenced modern dance styles today?
Jazz dance has significantly shaped modern dance styles by injecting vitality and a unique spirit into social and stage performances. Emerging from Black American society, jazz dance, with its improvisational and rhythmic qualities, has roots in both 19th and 20th-century stage and traditional Black social dances.
Characterized by elements like the Charleston and jitterbug, jazz dance evolved alongside jazz music, influencing American and European dance forms. It integrates into modern dance the dancer’s musical conversation, where movements arise from jazz music structure and rhythmic impulse. Choreographers and dancers have fused ballet with jazz, leading to innovative performances and redefining jazz dance.
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jazz dance, any dance to jazz accompaniments, composed of a profusion of forms. Jazz dance paralleled the birth and spread of jazz itself from roots in Black American society and was popularized in ballrooms by the big bands of the swing era (1930s and ’40s). It radically altered the style of American and European stage and social dance in the 20th century. The term is sometimes used more narrowly to describe (1) popular stage dance (except tap dance) and (2) jazz-derived or jazz-influenced forms of modern dance. It excludes social dances lacking jazz accompaniment—e.g., the rumba and other Latin-American dances.
Jazz dance developed from both 19th- and 20th-century stage dance and traditional Black social dances and their white ballroom offshoots. On the stage, minstrel show performers in the 19th century developed tap dancing from a combination of Irish jigging, English clog dancing, and African rhythmic stamping. Tap dance and such social dances as the cakewalk and shuffle became popular vaudeville acts and appeared in Broadway revues and musical comedies as these replaced vaudeville early in the 20th century. In addition, comedy, specialty, and character dances to jazz rhythms became standard stage routines. By the 1940s elements of jazz dance had appeared in modern dance and in motion picture choreography.
Although the stage popularized certain social dances, many others were transmitted mainly in social gatherings. The dances that gave rise to social forms of jazz dance developed from rural slave dances. In both early dances and 20th-century jazz dances, there is a noticeable continuity of dance elements and motions. The eagle rock and the slow drag (late 19th century) as well as the Charleston and the jitterbug have elements in common with certain Caribbean and African dances. In addition, the slow drag contributed to the fish of the 1950s; the ring shout, which survived from the 18th into the 20th century, in isolated areas, influenced the cakewalk.
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About 1900 the cakewalk, popularized through stage shows, became a craze in European and American ballrooms. In its wake appeared other social dances such as the Charleston (1920s), the jitterbug (1930s and ’40s), the twist (1960s), and disco dancing (1970s). Some, like the fox-trot, borrowed European dance steps and fitted them to jazz rhythms. The growth of radio, television, and recording, which popularized Black music among wide audiences, greatly aided the diffusion of these dances. Fusing ballet with jazz has led in recent years to the formation of such troupes as Canada’s Les Ballets Jazz.