Jazz Dance

Jazz Historical Research:

The style of Jazz was introduced during the era of the slave trade. Slaves were being transported from Africa to America during the 16th century to the 19th century. A prominent reason slaves were unwilling brought to America was because of a triangular trade. This meant that textiles and wine were shipped from Europe to Africa, enslaved people from Africa to America and sugar and coffee from America to Europe.

Music and dance of African origin formed the starting point for Jazz as during the slavery period African dance developed into African - American jazz dance culture. This was due to the mixing of the different cultures and the slaves originally mocking the American style of entertainment and adding their own heritage to the dance/ music.

Music and dance culture of the African slaves incorporated with white plantation owners, which evolved into Jazz dance style, through the use of African ritual and celebratory dances combined with slave folk music and influences from European harmonic structure. The heart of Jazz was born in New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi River played a key role in the development of Jazz at the beginning of the 20th century.

Bob Fosse

 Bob Fosse was born in Chicago 1927 and he was a choreographer, director and a dancer. He is best known for his  award- winning musicals like Chicago (1975) and Cabaret (1972). However at the very beginning of his career, critics would describe Fosse’s style of Jazz dance as a unique style of choreography. Many people didn’t like Fosse’s style of choreography to begin with as it was seen as ruthless and contrasted the traditional norms of dance that society was used to. He would ensure he included “cynical” movements like shoulder roles, finger snapping, turned in knees and toes and shuffling. Whereas within classical ballet, the movements tend to be more strict like the Plié and having to keep a straight posture at all times. Many view Bob Fosse as someone who revolutionised musicals with his distinct styles of work, especially including the unfamiliar of props and his signature moves like Jazz Hands.

 

Isolations- Isolations within Jazz dance are movements that involve only one part of the body while the other parts remain still. This is demonstrated in the image as you can see clearly in the head isolation, their heads are almost detached to the other body parts.

 Contractions- to accomplish contracting the torso in Jazz dance , your back needs to be curved outwards and your pelvis pulled forwards.

 sensuality-  Jazz is quite a sensual dance as it includes lots of hip/ buttock movements and accents within particular rhythms of the music. It also creates a contrast as despite being seen as quite graceful and sensual , it can also be viewed as dramatic and unexpected with lower body levels.

Jazz hands- Jazz hands are used 

 as a sign to signify applause and 

to show excitement within Jazz dance. 

Dynamics- Dynamics in Jazz can be very sharp and clean especially where movements are separate from each other. However, similar to contemporary dance, Jazz can sometimes include less intense movements , creating a juxtaposition in the dancing. For example, movements like shimmy’s and isolations can be used to cause effect despite the use of pirouette.

Low Centre of gravity-