Making Strides with Different Strokes: Jazz Dance From the East to the West
One thousand five hundred miles of American heartland separate New York City and Los Angeles, two of the most prominent and recognizable cities in the world. One bordering on the Atlantic and the other on the Pacific, both have emerged as international leaders in many industries, from science and academia to art and entertainment. These two cities, separated only by manifest destiny, have developed identities so unique it’s sometimes hard to believe they are united under the same flag.
Ask any New Yorker what he or she thinks of Los Angeles or vice versa and the person will almost always mention fashion. While New Yorkers dress for all seasons, L.A. folk sport the same laid back, yet expensive and trendy style all year round. But the differences don’t end here. In fact, style and fashion are directly related to one of the other major East Coast-West Coast differences in popular culture: dance.
Some dance genres, like ballet, remain the same no matter the time zone. There may be some minor stylistic disparities depending on the company, but a plié is always a plié and a tendu is always a tendu, on either side of the United States. But when it comes to jazz dance, New York City and L.A. have their own unique and distinctive dialects.
A Little Bit of History
If ballet has remained the same, then why did jazz dance evolve so differently on opposite coasts? Ballet, which originally comes from Europe, was created as a rigid, structured technique to honor and preserve the tradition of 17th century court dancing. On the other hand, jazz dance evolved from tap dance as a vernacular form completely indigenous to America, leaving room for much variation.
In New York City in the early 20th century, nightclubs, vaudeville and Broadway contributed to the codification of jazz dance as a technique. Other cities like Kansas City, St. Louis, and New Orleans experienced their own jazz dance movements that coincided with the jazz music craze. Jazz finally moved westward with the popularization of sound-films in the 1930s, giving Hollywood its own unique dance scene that drew many away from the Broadway stage.
As the jazz dance scenes in Los Angeles and New York City evolved throughout the 20th century, they became synonymous with film and concert, respectively. If you wanted to try your luck at dancing on stage, you packed your bags and headed towards the bright lights of Broadway. If appearing on the silver screen sparked your interest, your destination was westbound to Hollywood. And today, that notion remains mostly the same.
In New York City, there are literally hundreds of theatres, from huge venues like Lincoln Center to smaller black-box type theatres like The Kitchen. With everything and everyone so close together, the city is an ideal place for art to grow and thrive in the traditional performance setting. Jazz dance companies, while less numerous than modern companies, have more success in New York than anywhere else. And when you factor in Broadway to the mix, it becomes apparent that New York is a city of concert dance.
In Los Angeles, a town where café patrons grip organic tea in one hand and a script in the other, the spirit of Hollywood fills the air. Concert dance exists, but has a more difficult time thriving in the presence of movie and commercial sets. Here, dancers display their talents appearing in product industrials, television commercials, music videos and movies more often than on the proscenium stage. In L.A., dancers are marketing tools used to sell or promote a product, a film or even a celebrity.
Ty Alexander Cheng in LA
Photo by Richard Calmes
Technique vs. Stylization
With different markets existing in New York and L.A., jazz dance must adapt in either place to fit demands. Because both cities are so unique, it makes sense why jazz dance has evolved so differently on opposite coasts. While certain steps will always remain the same like a layout or an axle turn, many aspects are quite different.
In New York, jazz dancers generally have a more classical foundation with the ability to perform other kinds of dance such as modern, ballet and contemporary with more ease. Although some stage roles in New York will require a certain performance quality or physical prerequisite, concert dance in New York is generally less about individual stylization than it is about technique and execution.
In commercial dance, on the other hand, jazz dancers are more edgy, funky and trendy. And since dancers in L.A. are often selling a product or performing a role on camera, they have to have a certain “look” that is in tune with popular culture. Skill level can sometimes take a backseat to physical appearance, as directors know exactly what they are looking for before the audition doors even open.
Elisabeth Rainer, a jazz student at Broadway Dance Center and performer with LiNK! the Movement, believes these differences are stylistic as well as technical. “I haven’t danced in L.A., so I don’t want to say the dancers there have no technique at all,” she prefaces. “But from what I have seen the focus in New York is more technical and the focus out there is more on performance.”
But New York based teacher Ginger Cox, who teaches at BDC and is the artistic director at LiNK! the Movement, stresses that many L.A. dancers have just as much technique as anyone on the east coast, it just depends with whom you train. “There are brilliant teachers on the west coast that are as technical as teachers on the east coast, like Jackie Sleight,” she explains. “She is beautiful, straight jazz.”
Nonetheless, the technique factor still exists, mainly because the classes offered in either place are helping prepare students for their respective professional careers. Cox explains that Chris Hale, one of her fellow teachers at BDC, just returned from teaching in L.A. and said that his students were grateful for his class. “He gave a very technical warm-up,” explains Cox. “They don’t get that as much.”
But Bill Prudich, founder of the prestigious EDGE Performing Arts Center in L.A., argues that technique does exist in jazz dance out west, more so than people might think. “Classical jazz as an idiom exists in class, in the studios. It just doesn’t exist in the market place.” According to Prudich, the main difference between New York and L.A. is not technical, it’s stylistic. “Generally speaking, jazz in L.A. moves faster and it is more idiosyncratic and individualized than in New York City,” he explains.
Let’s Meet Halfway
Any arguments that may exist between dancers from L.A. and New York should be put to rest, according to educators from both coasts. Cox believes that we must peacefully co-exist as artists and try to learn something from each other as we continue pushing dance into the future. Every time she visits Los Angeles, she immediately notices differences in the classroom; but rather than closing herself off, she sees it as a valuable learning experience.
L.A. dancers, for example, have a versatility that many New York performers do not. Cox explains, “The dancers out there carry around their audition bag, and in their audition bag is a sports outfit, a hip-hop outfit, etc., so at any given moment if they get a call, they go. And they look like the type that is being cast.” She continues, “I personally don’t think New York performers are as prepared in that particular domain.”
And on the other hand, New York City dancers have a more solid classical foundation than L.A. dancers, which can prepare them for any type of choreography. Cox believes that once you have the technique down, stylistic adjustments are easy. “You can do a battement in hip-hop with a flexed foot and break it. Working from the base first is important.”
Nowadays, many dancers travel between New York and L.A., learning from each other and exchanging ideas. Cox believes this is imperative because the demands of dance are continually becoming more stringent. “In any physical arena, people are pushing themselves more and more to try different things and have a higher level of skill,” she explains. Rainer agrees as well. “You have to be able to do it all, from straight Luigi jazz to theatre jazz to complete contemporary to lyrical to commercial… to anything. And that is what’s taking the dance world to a whole new level.”
According to Prudich, both coasts can learn from each other, but they should also look to Chicago for inspiration, where he believes jazz exists in its purest form. “I don’t know if that’s the influence of Lou Conte and Gus Giordano, but their jazz is very technique- based, classical jazz. New York and L.A. are both influenced a lot by different aspects of commercial dance.”
But even more important than the learning opportunities is the necessity to respect each other as dancers regardless of which ocean you border. “We, as a collective, both New York City and L.A. dancers, are bringing more to the dance world and working together in our own way. We have to have appreciation and respect for each other or we’re going to tear dance in half,” warns Cox. “We’re doing our thing here in New York and they’re moving dance forward doing their own thing in L.A. And together, as long as we have that support system, we can both produce really great dancers.”