Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches

33. A Journey into the Heart of Jazz Dance

33 A Journey into the Heart of Jazz Dance Jill Flanders Crosby Sketching the Journey In 1981, I began a long artistic and scholarly journey in search of jazz dance. I already considered myself a jazz dancer, for I took “jazz” classes in high school, college, and professional studios in New York City.1 I was in love with the form and identified its aesthetic as primary to my artistic voice. University employment in Alaska immediately after my 1975 BA degree required a terminal degree, and I began this process in 1981 first with my master’s degree and then doctoral work in 1989.2 Little did I know when I began that my journey would eventually take me to Ghana, West Africa, and Cuba and significantly reshape how I understand jazz. I began by asking “What is jazz dance?” My initial exploration led me to the seminal 1959 article by jazz historian Marshall Stearns, “Is Modern Jazz Hopelessly Square?” Stearns laments about the present state of dance called jazz in the 1950s, arguing that jazz dancers and choreographers were ignoring jazz rhythms and music. He was challenging the very structure of dance that I knew and loved as “jazz.” “How can he say that?” I thought. “I dance this form, and all my teachers call it jazz. Therefore it must be jazz dance.” I wanted to prove him wrong but discovered I could not. So I began investigating. 279 1981–1989 Over the next eight years, I explored jazz dance as an artist and as an educator . I was influenced not only by Stearns’s article, but also by his seminal book Jazz Dance, which chronicles the development of vernacular jazz dance in the early twentieth century.3 This led me into further explorations of jazz dance’s West African and African-American vernacular roots and into jazz improvisation. I discovered during my master’s work that jazz musicians and historians believe two key components are vital to jazz: rhythmic complexity and improvisation.4 In order to explore these elements, I began dancing to jazz music: standard tunes by artists such as Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, and John Coltrane. This pushed me into a new artistic direction , as my jazz classes primarily used pop music. We seldom improvised and steps were usually organized around a ballet and modern dance vocabulary with little attention to jazz rhythms. During these same eight years, I also traveled to New York City almost every summer to take jazz dance classes, and as it is well documented beyond Stearns’s work that the West African aesthetic is foundational to jazz dance and music, I took multiple West African and West African Diaspora dance classes.5 Despite all this, I still could not find the core of jazz dance and music as Marshall Stearns had described it. 1989–1998 I began doctoral work at Teachers College Columbia University. In order to truly grasp the West African roots of jazz expression, I took dance and drumming classes at the University of Ghana for a year, while also conducting fieldwork.6 I spent a second year in New York City (and an additional two summers) taking two classes that honored jazz music and multiple theater dance, West African, West African Diaspora, and tap classes.7 I took Lindy dance classes and went out social swing dancing.8 I spent hours in the New York City Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library, visited Washington ’s Smithsonian Jazz Oral History Collection, went to jazz music clubs, and interviewed seminal jazz dancers and musicians—all critical research steps I had missed during my master’s work. Finally, I performed under the direction of nationally recognized jazz choreographers who honor an approach embracing rhythmic complexity, structured improvisation, and performance to live jazz music.9 I culminated my doctoral work in 1995 by detailing a new understanding of jazz dance. I presented arguments that contrasted this new understanding —what is identified in this book as rhythm-generated jazz—with the 280 · Jill Flanders Crosby earlier form of jazz that I had danced—which for the purposes of my dissertation , I called pop dance. I found that both forms trace their roots back to African-American folk and vernacular jazz dances. However, I also found that they have differing styles and techniques and embrace the West African and African-American roots from divergent perspectives. But before I detail what changed...