Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches

3. A Twenty-First-Century Jazz Dance Manifesto

3 A Twenty-First-Century Jazz Dance Manifesto Sheron Wray Jazz dance is centered on four principles derived from an African aesthetic: rhythmicity, a formidable relationship with the music, improvisation, and dynamic play. Rhythm is intimately connected to music. There is, however, also independence in how this rhythm manifests. It is not like the concept of music visualization referred to in many modern dance textbooks. It is, instead, a jazzcentered articulation of rhythm that responds to the rhythmic framework of the music not by paralleling it but by being in dialogue with it. Therefore, the choreography should have its own rhythmic trajectory that interlaces with the music. At times this counterpoints the rhythmic and melodic ideas, and at other times it weaves its way through the instrumentation, depending on how the choreographer chooses to hear it. At times there may be a deep feeling connected with the bass line, whereas at other times there may be a need to express the melodic line. Within that rhythmic expression the choreographer or dancer attempts to produce complex articulation of the body, demonstrating multiple tones simultaneously. The movements in jazz dance convey the nuances of rhythm including the tone color that musicians produce. Rhythm expresses itself through time and space, and the jazz dancing body represents time as a mosaic, showing multiple spheres of action simultaneously .1 Transferring this idea to dance, constructing mosaic movement means that the phrasing and composition of jazz connects many uneven 12 rhythmic elements, while the physical shape of the individual parts remain unique. Rhythm also calls for stillness to make itself clear. Therefore, the jazz dancer must be able to bring high velocity movement to a forceful stop, which requires motor precision and control. Stillness must not be blurred. Its dynamic potential is intended to generate feelings of surprise for the audience . The jazz dancing body is multicentered, whereby every single part and surface has equal inventive potential. In other words, movements do not all contain the same aesthetic value. In jazz dance, different body parts juxtaposed will embody a variety of rhythmic tones and generate distinctive effects. It is important to state that music created by groups of musicians playing instruments is very different from music created by a producer using a computer that does not feel time. Playing music is a physical act. Musicians’ technique and feelings inform this creative act. This expression is a gift to the jazz dancer. As I remind my students at the University of California, Irvine, jazz music is America’s greatest cultural contribution to the world. Often students laugh at what they perceive to be a wild suggestion, but by attending concerts , listening to recordings, and reading, they learn that it is a commonly held truth. The origins of jazz music are founded in movement; the dancing and singing of African slaves have become the center of this iconic memory of Congo Square, New Orleans, in the eighteenth century. The epicenter of this conjugation of music and dance is the shared African heritage of its Figure 3.1. Wynton Marsalis with dancers Sheron Wray and Jared Grimes, September 15, 2011. Sanders Theatre, Harvard University. Photo by Ernest Gregory. A Twenty-First-Century Jazz Dance Manifesto · 13 founders. Vernacular dancing is at the root of jazz dance, and from this African perspective, dance and music exist together as a holistic activity, as one begets the other. Despite the synthesis with European musical principles that included mastery of western instruments and adoption of western harmonic principles , jazz music and dancing arose out of African-American social encounters where people pursued them for pleasure, social contact, and spiritual renewal, fulfilled through bodily expression; in this way both the dance and the music were essential and affected one another. Moving this principle forward in time, through further synthesis with European values and responses to a changing environment, I would argue that music remains the central creative force inspiring dancers and choreographers to generate work in this idiom. This distinction of developing movement directly from embodying the essence and attitude of the music is critical in choreographing or teaching jazz. Jazz is a music form that arose directly out of African-American communities , and like music of African origin, it has a significant improvised and individually defined component. Because of this, there are creative spaces for individual expression to shape the content of performance while maintaining a close engagement with the aesthetic...