Commercial jazz, modern jazz, road jazz, theater jazz, jazz funk, Afro jazz, jazzercise. What do all of them have in widespread? If you answered “jazz”, you’re taking the straightforward method out. Is jazz definable, or has it develop into a catch-all umbrella time period? For readability, Dance Informa turned to Kimberley Cooper, inventive director of Decidedly Jazz Danceworks – a Canadian-based dance firm, college and group devoted to the shape’s wealthy historical past, traditions and future.
Wait, Canadian? But wasn’t jazz initially an American artwork kind? Yes, very a lot so. More particularly, it was a Black American artwork kind. It has migrated and advanced, typically past recognition. This article is simply an introduction. If you aspire to an entire understanding of what jazz is, it must be positioned in its historic, cultural and social contexts. Cooper recommends Rooted Jazz Dance: African Aesthetics and Equity within the Twenty-First Century, by Lindsay Guarino, Carlos R. A. Jones and Wendy Oliver, for a deeper dive.
Of her presence as a white lady on this planet of jazz, Cooper says, “I approach this work as a guest, with a lot of respect and reverence. The history of jazz is convoluted and messy and over a hundred years old. It was born as a result of the slave trade. If you’re going to work in jazz, you need to honor that history.”
When did jazz dance begin splitting off from jazz music?
“This is a large query as a result of we’re speaking about American historical past, tradition, racism, politics …issues that aren’t tidy or linear. But in a tiny nutshell – jazz dance and music had been born within the USA from African American roots and the Black American expertise. Seeds had been planted for hundreds of years in plantation dances, minstrelsy and vaudeville earlier than jazz was referred to as ‘jazz’ within the early 1900s when jazz music stormed the world. And of us had been dancing to it within the Jazz Age of the ’20s and ’30s: the Black Bottom, the Charleston, the Lindy Hop…
And then various issues occurred within the ’40s, like World War II. Hard to have an enormous band when the rhythm part has been drafted. The ‘cabaret tax’ that was instated from 1944-1965 meant it value extra to have singing and dancing in your venue. Jazz music advanced into bebop, and though there have been individuals dancing to it (like skilled faucet dancers sitting in with the musicians), it was tougher for the much less refined ear to maneuver to. It grew to become extra of a sit-down-and-listen form of music.
Even earlier than that, Hollywood and Broadway had been cranking out musicals within the golden period of film and stage musicals, the Thirties-Fifties. The dance college business started to flourish and was propelled by White individuals who held European dance aesthetics above Africanist aesthetics. ‘Jazz’ dance grew to become increasingly upright, rhythmically sq. and continues to float additional away from its roots. It was massive enterprise; take a look at the dance college business as we speak.
Popular music modified. Rock and roll took over the world (which can be a Black kind despite the fact that Elvis made all the cash). Look on the continuum of R&B, soul, funk, disco, hip hop. Black American music/tradition evolving from jazz had, and continues to have, a large impression on the world’s in style tradition.”
Do you assume that department of what we now name jazz dance ought to exist beneath a special identify?
“Maybe? I believe that in case you are not dancing to the music of jazz and its household, in case you are not acknowledging the bodily and historic roots, in case you are speaking in regards to the fathers of jazz dance in America they usually’re all White males – that needs to be reconsidered. Who is lacking from that dialog? And why?
There is a crucial present motion towards educating and training dance in a extra respectful, educated method, particularly when working in a kind that isn’t a part of our tradition or lived expertise. I consider embracing this motion can result in significant and needed change.”
So would you say for those who’re coaching in a showgirl, Hollywood-derived department of the jazz evolution (similar to Broadway or business jazz), for those who’re going to make use of the time period jazz in that context, then you need to know the historical past of it?
“Yes, and – why are you still calling what you’re doing, if it’s upright, and you’re not using your spine, and you’re not dancing in a grounded way, and you’re not being polyrhythmic, and you’re not improvising, and you’re not dancing to jazz music, why are you still calling it jazz?”
So do we’d like a brand new time period? If it’s already divided itself so removed from its roots.
“I believe that’s the straightforward method. But possibly, I imply, jazz is tough. If you need to upend your follow and begin digging, get to work! Believe me, it takes years; it’s a lifetime journey. I dance and make dance due to music, and jazz music referred to as out to me and anchored itself in my coronary heart and physique at a really younger age. I grew up in a metropolis the place I used to be capable of be a part of an organization the place it was very a lot an element our follow to dig deep and ‘go to the source whenever possible.’
But that’s my expertise, and I do know it’s uncommon. The business dance world isn’t mine and once I see glimpses of dances with jazz of their names, I don’t actually perceive how or why they’re referred to as what they’re. Everyone has to make their very own path, and possibly if what you like, what you’ve invested your complete life in has nothing to do with jazz, then name it one thing else.”
What is jazz dance in 2023? It’s unanswerable in a single article. But simply asking the query introduces this messy, ongoing dialog to extra dancers and will get extra of us asking ourselves, ‘Is this jazz?‘
Cooper’s reply? “Jazz is over 100 years previous, and it’s a up to date artform, that means it exists in and responds to the present time. And there are historic concepts and philosophies inside it that must be there for it to be jazz. You hear jazz music with its twists and evolutions and fusions – however you continue to acknowledge it as jazz music. Shouldn’t that be true for jazz dance?
She additionally factors to Louis Armstrong’s well-known response to that very same query of “what is jazz?” His reply? “If you have to ask, you’ll never know.”
Cooper notes there’s “an important thing about that, that we can talk history, evolution, theory, era, influence, style, but there is also something about jazz that is elusive and about feeling, and you can’t really teach people how to feel.”
By Holly LaRoche of Dance Informa.
