Legends of Jazz Dance Technique
Although jazz dance is an indigenous American art form, its roots span continents and centuries—from Africa and the Caribbean to slave dances in the American South and dance halls of the 1920s. Jazz dance was hundreds of years in the making, yet it only became widely popular in the 20th century. We know what jazz looks like when we see it, but what exactly constitutes jazz technique? How can so many styles and variations fall under the same umbrella? Dancer has profiled four of the men responsible for their own styles of jazz—Luigi, Gus Giordano, Jack Cole and Bob Fosse—two teachers and two choreographers. It is notable that three of these dancers served in the military during World War II and afterwards studied dance under the GI Bill, which provided veterans with college or vocational education. This shared experience and a constant flow of influence built a foundation that shaped jazz as we know it today—in all its various forms.
LUIGI: “NEVER STOP MOVING”
Luigi’s dance career can be summed up in one word: perseverance. After surviving a life-threatening car accident, Luigi went on to perform in Hollywood films and develop the world’s first comprehensive jazz dance technique. Always content out of the spotlight, Luigi was an extraordinary teacher and trained many famous dancers to use their bodies to the fullest capacity.
Born in Ohio, Eugene Louis Faccuito (who earned his nickname from Gene Kelly) was drafted into the Navy in 1943. After returning home, he enrolled in dance classes at the Falcon Studios in Hollywood. Only two months later, Luigi was nearly killed in a car accident and suffered a month-long coma and near paralysis on one side of his body. His doctors had little hope that he would recover at all, let alone dance again.
On his own, Luigi began rehabilitation, strengthening his muscles and regaining flexibility. During this process, he began to develop his own approach to movement and a series of exercises that became the basis for his technique.
When Luigi was ready to perform, he could not audition for featured roles because the plastic surgery on his face was incomplete. Nonetheless, Luigi danced in many films. During the long waiting periods on set, Luigi did his own exercises to keep his body limber. Soon, other dancers joined him and Luigi was encouraged to start a jazz dance class.
After performing in over 40 films, Luigi finally discovered his love for teaching, which he preferred over the pressures of the audition circuit. Luigi’s technique emphasizes elegant lyricism and is strongly influenced by ballet. He is most concerned with preventing injuries by learning proper technique. “Take your time—feel what you’re doing,” Luigi would say. “If you keep doing things right long enough, they’ll get better right.”
In 1956, Luigi opened his school in New York, where he has prepared many famous dancers, including Liza Minnelli, Ann Reinking, Alvin Ailey and John Travolta. Through the years, Luigi has taught at conservatories and universities all over the world. But, to this day, you can find him at his studio on 68th Street in Manhattan, where, at seventy-five years old, he is the perfect example of his mantra: “Never Stop Moving!”
GUS GIORDANO: A MIDWESTERN MAN
Gus Giordano, who passed away on March 9, 2008, was the leading proponent of jazz dance in the Midwest. Although he built his career thousands of miles from Hollywood or Broadway, Giordano was a successful choreographer, teacher and advocate for jazz dance. At five years old, Giordano was introduced to jazz music on a trip to experience Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Instantly hooked, he returned home to study ballet and theatre dance. As a marine in WWII, Giordano performed at military bases around the country. Afterwards, he studied dance in New York. There he encountered some of the most influential modern dancers of the time—Katherine Dunham and Hanya Holm. After months of auditions, Giordano had not succeeded in getting a part on Broadway and returned home to finish college. Later, Giordano again tried his luck in New York, this time with his young wife Peg in tow. While he eventually landed roles in Broadway musicals, Giordano didn’t find the work—or, perhaps most importantly, the lifestyle—fulfilling. In 1953, he moved back to Chicago and opened a dance studio where he could pursue his two passions: teaching and choreography.
New York, and especially Jerome Robbins and modern dance, had a great effect on Giordano’s regal style of jazz. “I regard jazz as an art form,” remarked Giordano, “as the true American dance movement, movement that is withheld and movement that explodes.” In Giordano’s class, dancers begin with a floor warm-up, emphasizing strength, and eventually proceed to sitting, kneeling and isolations combined with precise jazz walks.
Giordano is also known as a jazz scholar and in 1978 authored the first book on jazz dance, “Anthology of American Jazz Dance.” He organized the first Jazz Dance World Congress in 1990, an event that continues every year. His studio grew through the years and eventually incorporated a dance company, Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago, which is now run by his daughter.
For Giordano, pursuing a career in the Midwest rather than in New York or Los Angeles allowed him to enjoy acclaim as a dancer and build a jazz dance empire that lives on today without straying far from home.
Illustration by Jolie Prom
JACK COLE: THE FATHER OF THEATRICAL JAZZ
Arguably, Jack Cole did more to popularize jazz dance than anyone else. Working in Hollywood films, Cole inspired Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Tommy Tune and many other choreographers of the 1960s and 1970s. With an undeniably sexy style, Cole developed a technique that draws from modern East Indian and Asian dance styles—and red-hot jazz music.
Cole was born in 1911 in New Jersey and studied early modern dance. As a student and performer with the renowned Denishawn Dance Company directed by Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, Cole learned the fundamentals of modern dance and also developed an interest in the ethnic and “oriental” dance that was popular at the time. Later, Cole performed with Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman, two of the most influential modern dancers of the early 20th century.
While modern dance remained a great inspiration to Cole, he eventually left it for a commercial dance career. Working in nightclubs, Cole’s style developed as a fusion of popular jazz dance steps borrowed from the social dances of the era and weighted, earthy modern dance technique. In his choreography, the dancer often moves in a low plié, giving the work a sense of power and gravity. Cole also incorporated isolation and syncopation, along with aspects of East Indian movement.
Overall, Cole’s style is recognizable for its sequential movement and organic rhythms combined with a sensuality that was taboo at the time. On stage and in over 30 motion pictures, Cole’s dancers are intensely kinetic, smoldering, depersonalized beings. Rita Hayworth and Marilyn Monroe, two of his most famous dancers, learned from Cole the value of a timely pause and the erotic effect of exaggerated inhibitions.
Watching films of the 1940s and 1950s—like “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business”—one can distinguish an unmistakable style that would shape the work of many choreographers to come.
BOB FOSSE: ART IMITATES LIFE
Bob Fosse’s simple seductiveness is instantly recognizable—a swivel of the hip, a shoulder roll, the bat of an eyelash—and still noticeable in today’s music videos and nightclubs. Fosse’s choreography dominated Broadway during the 1960s and 1970s and his work was widely celebrated. In 1973 he was awarded Oscar, Tony and Emmy awards all in the same year. Despite his great success, Fosse led a tumultuous life—afraid of failure and prone to addiction and depression. However, it may have been the combination of triumph and breakdown that was responsible for Fosse’s genius.
The youngest of six children, Fosse was born into a Methodist family on the North Side of Chicago. As a young dancer, his duet tap act toured Chicago’s “presentation houses.” Soon they graduated to strip clubs and the seedy nightclub scene, which made an indelible impression on Fosse.
Fosse enlisted in WWII and was hired to perform in a show that toured Pacific military bases. After the war, he moved to New York and enrolled in dancing and acting classes. His first Broadway musicals were choreographed in the wholesome Agnes de Mille style that dominated Broadway. But, in Lola’s strip tease in “Damn Yankees” (1955) we can already see Fosse’s signature style coming to life. Of course, it helped that Lola was played by Gwen Verdon, who was trained by Jack Cole and became Fosse’s mistress, muse and, later, his wife.
With an edgy, cynical sexuality, Fosse’s dances are intense and specific. The dancers are rarely characters in a drama, and are often seen in tight formation—their movement sparse and calculated. Almost more important than the movement itself, Fosse’s routines have a coolly sophisticated, yet unabashedly vulgar attitude—a blend that only he could master.
Fosse went on to choreograph and direct Broadway shows and films, including “Sweet Charity” (1966), “Chicago” (1975) and “Cabaret” (1972). Despite his prolific career, Fosse felt that he “had to work twice as hard as everyone else to be half as good.” When the film version of “Sweet Charity” turned out to be a flop, Fosse’s life veered towards drugs, drinking and multiple affairs. In 1971, his marriage ended and three years later he nearly died of a heart attack.
Later in his career, Fosse’s films became even more contemptuous and corrupt. However, this gloomy period produced some of Fosse’s best work. It was as if he relied on his real life turmoil to fuel his neurotic imagination. In 1987, at only sixty years old, he collapsed on a sidewalk and died of a heart attack. Fosse’s hard, shadowy life had caught up with him, but not before it gave rise to some of the best jazz dance of the 20th century.
The forefathers of jazz came mostly from meager upbringings in small-town America. It was their talent and determination that allowed them to build thriving careers. While Luigi and Giordano found their calling in the studio, Fosse and Cole spent their lives in the limelight. The fame and inevitable public scrutiny eventually wore on Cole and Fosse. Perhaps it is only a coincidence, but both of these prominent choreographers died at only sixty years old while Luigi and Giordano were able to balance work and life well into their seventies and eighties. Looking back, these men illustrate the many career paths—and styles—that make up jazz dance. As Giordano wrote in his book, “I think this is what I really love about jazz dancing—just when I think I’ve figured it out it takes a new turn and I start thinking again.”