A brief history of Jazz dance
Jazz dance originated in the early 20th century in New Orleans, Louisiana. Culturally rich where African, Carribean and European traditions merged. Jazz evolved as a uniquely American art from that emphasized improvisation, syncopation and rhythmic swing. Jazz began to take to the streets and clubs of New Orleans in the 1910's. The new name of 'Jazz Age' came around in the 1920's where it spread nationally, especially through the rise of jazz bands located in Chiacago and New York. 1930's-1940's was known as the jazz swing era and the 1940's-1950's was the start of modern jazz.
It relates as well to the 1740 slave act where people were prohibited from playing African drums or performing to African dances but in the 19th century white Americans decided they liked this style of dance and music that the slaves would have created which changed their perspective on slave life.
Bob Fosse was known as a jazz icon during the 20th century as a big time American dancer and choreographer, Fosse was big on his using props such as hats, specifically bowler hats and storytelling through his time as a dancer and choreographer and his open hand, spread apart fingers known as 'Jazz hands' was a key element in his routines. He created his own style back then which to this day people still replicate in their own jazz routines.
Bob Fosse wasn't the only icon and performer for Jazz, in the 1920's Fred Astaire was known on Broadway however in 1933 when musicals found their way to Hollywood he moved with it and became the leading man for movie musicals.
Another Jazz influenced icon was Gene Kelly, also making his mark as a dancer in movie musicals, he had his own impact on Jazz with his individual and energetic dance style that combined Jazz and Tap, making it very athletic and sometimes adding in gymnastic qualities.
Jazz dance has evolved and modernised itself to the big thing that it still is today in the 21st century. Influencing hundreds of choreographers to create their own take on long loved Jazz inspired movements that get taught to a lot of younger dancers in dance schools around the world. A lot of people post their creativity on social media showcasing their inspiration and choreography from the long history that Jazz dance has had over several decades. As i've also done a project on Commercial dance, I mentioned that Jazz relates a lot to it, over the years choreographers have found them to be quite similar, yes they have their own styles of movements but in some cases they've actually been known to blend together really well, during my Commercial dance project when going through my routines I did I found one specifically where I had merged the two styles of dance together and they worked really well. I'm very excited to more on more projects such as Jazz routines in the future or even finding more styles of dance that fit together and using that to blend two, maybe different, styles of dance together to see what other routines I can choreograph and create.
Here is my jazz routine I choreographed for this jazz 1 unit. I worked really hard on this routine and was a creative as i could be with the movements, the first video is a rehearsal in the marked out stage space I would be performing on and the second video is my performance video in the tent at the create 25 festival.
Jazz isn't my strongest style of dance but I still had fun choreographing a routine and putting the music together, I used two songs with composed of 'Attention' by Todrick Hall which then blended into 'Sax' by Fleur East.
I was really proud that I put the two songs together but If i had more time in the choreography process I would have used more songs to make more of a mashup of jazz songs for the routine. It started as I was only going to do the first song just as an individual but half way through I had to change and re choreograph a new routine beacuse my first idea wasn't working with what I had in mind to do.
I did jazz in university and when I was choreographing this routine I tried thinking back to when I was doing jazz in uni to bring back some of the movements I did then, but then I had the idea to just be creative with my routine and try movements that I didn't do in uni. I looked up jazz movements on youtube to get inspiration and then just added my own unique twist for my own routine.