Where Are All the Jazz Companies?
As one of the most popular forms of study in dance studios around the country, why is jazz dance so hard to find on the concert stage? Jazz dancers go to Broadway or Los Angeles for commercial dance, but there are very few options for those who want to dance in a company. And today, when jazz dancers start their own companies, they often call them contemporary dance. Why? Is jazz passé? There are a growing number of hip hop companies and many contemporary dance companies, but jazz companies are few and far between. Again, why?
“I’ve asked that question myself,” says Nan Giordano, artistic director of Giordano Jazz Dance Chicago and the Jazz Dance World Congress. “My thoughts on jazz dance are that it lives in the current time, as well as the historical. It is the pulse of what is happening now along with the roots of African and where jazz came from. Our company definitely stretches the boundaries of what defines jazz dance.” Giordano goes on to say that it is difficult to find companies that suit the mission of the Jazz Dance World Congress. “For the Jazz Dance World Festival performances, we push the boundaries of jazz with companies that are not necessarily jazz companies but have a jazz vein in their repertoire.”
So where are all the jazz companies? “First,” Giordano says, “jazz dance is the younger of the art forms in terms of concert dance, and second, the pioneers of jazz dance and the very formulating masters did not choose to have a company. They honed in on teaching their technique as opposed to showcasing it. Our company was born because the Bolshoi Ballet was coming to Chicago and there were no jazz companies. Ann Barzel (who was a noted critic and historian) came to my father and asked him to get together some dancers to show the Russians some American jazz dancing. This was unprecedented.”
Giordano is on to something. It isn’t that such masters of jazz dance as Jack Cole, Matt Maddox and Bob Fosse didn’t showcase their work. They did, but just not by creating a dance company in the ballet and modern tradition.* There is good reason for this phenomenon.
Jazz is rooted in the shared experience. Stemming from African-American vernacular and several social dances, individualism came in the form of improvisational moments meant to spearhead further conversation within the social forum in which they were danced. Concurrently, this translates to the rise of the jazz musician, who also worked improvisationally within the group dynamic. These origins are important in following jazz dance’s trajectory, because while there was indeed showcasing, it was not necessarily in the form of set works prepared for the concert stage, as in the repertoire of modern and ballet. The move toward repertoire came in stages with each new forum moving it closer to concert dance: the minstrel show, vaudeville stage, film and finally Broadway, the showcase of all showcases. While jazz remained a popular form of dance, it was not perceived as artistically serious, making it difficult for jazz dance to compete in the concert dance world. In order to move more directly into the concert dance world, a shift of sorts would be necessary.
The origins of Les Ballet Jazz de Montreal are unquestionably rooted in jazz dance, but according to a quote from artistic director Louis Robitaille in Mary Staub’s October 2008 article in this magazine, the company struggled in its early years to be recognized alongside ballet and modern companies. Interesting to note, is that it has recently been rebranded under the name BJM Danse. There has also been a shift in the kinds of works the company now performs, which by all standards have brought outstanding recognition. However, it is no longer considered a jazz company but a contemporary one, a word that gets a lot of mileage in the dance world these days.
“I hate the word contemporary,” Giordano says. “The word is so overused. When I use the word, it means ‘current,’ it means ‘now.’” This is what we all mean whether we refer to contemporary ballet, modern, jazz or an amalgamation of all three and more. Unfortunately for the jazz world, we unwittingly defy any further delineation of the meaning of jazz dance and therefore chip away at an already elusive definition of just what constitutes the form today.
Cole and Fosse’s jazz techniques are now referred to as theater dance, while those of Luigi and Maddox are called classical jazz. We have east and west coast styles of jazz dance, each with its own mix of tap, hip hop, Latin and lyrical. Without question, the nature of jazz dance demands that it be given room to evolve; it needs to remain current. But how do we make these shifts and remain true to what differentiates jazz dance from other dance forms?
Billy Siegenfeld, artistic director of the Jump Rhythm Jazz Project, creator of the most recent jazz technique in several decades and a wonderfully passionate speaker about this topic, offers his point of view: “Marshall Stearns wrote an article entitled ‘Is Modern Jazz Dance Hopelessly Square?’ in which Stearns claimed that what defined jazz dancing was its rhythmic essence. I respond to this thinking and live by it,” says Siegenfeld.
“As a jazz drummer, I am very, very sensitive to so-called jazz rhythms, which are quite different from others. Two rhythms play against each other, one on the beat and one off the beat. The polyrhythmic result is what gives jazz its flavor. So, I have built a technique on rhythm. By doing so, we are trying to define characteristics of what defines jazz dancing,” he continues.
Siegenfeld says that bringing in other forms may impede the rhythmic nature of jazz dancing. “If you go with a jazz impulse—that is for me, a rhythmic impulse, to make bodies create rhythm—the body’s weight is used to create accents down into the earth,” he continues. “I call it ‘full-bodied rhythm,’ meaning that the body is in the service of making rhythm visible. But if a jazz choreographer is going to premise his/her work on a ballet-based technique or a release technique, that choreographer is by definition not allowing that body to perform rhythmically at its most articulate,” Siegenfeld concludes.
Siegenfeld’s two distinctions—the rhythmic impetus for the creation of jazz dance, and the emphasis on downward movement accents—may be shifting because of choreographers, but dancers’ training also comes into play. Now we have jazz dancers with tremendous ballet backgrounds and choreographers love to take advantage of this. What one sees a lot of today is a vocabulary that is based in the kinds of extraordinary things ballet training allows you to do. Because of this we find ourselves by default in different territory: the amalgamated.
The title by which artistic director Tracie Stanfield, a relative newcomer to concert jazz, identifies her company is Synthesis Dance Project. “Firmly grounded in classical technique and pulling from jazz and contemporary styles of movement, the company challenges the boundaries of concert dance,” her mission states. Stanfield explains, “I chose the word ‘synthesis’ because there are a lot of different sides to me, and I wanted freedom to be able to explore…. At the heart of what I do I will always think of myself as a jazz choreographer, but I definitely think that lyrical is an extension of jazz, and I define jazz dance by the vocabulary of the movement instead of the type of music used.”
For Stanfield, using a broader definition of jazz affords her company more opportunity. “As a jazz dancer and teacher, I have always felt frustration in seeing jazz placed only in commercial vehicles. So, I started my company and initially, we primarily performed jazz dance. However, there didn’t seem to be very many concert dance opportunities. Presenters always questioned whether I was offering ballet or modern. As an emerging choreographer, one of the only places I felt accepted was at the Jazz Dance World Congress.”
Questioning Stanfield to the edge of discomfort, she admits that she shies away from calling her troupe a jazz company partly for marketing purposes. “In an effort to be viable and to earn a living, for better or worse, the word jazz has the connotation of being old school, not hip, not of the time. In order to get my ideas produced, I have had to give up a little. I now use the catchall phrase that everyone else uses: contemporary. Jazz doesn’t stand on its own.”
As difficult as it may be to say these things out loud, Stanfield is telling it like it is. “I teach two classes on Mondays: an intermediate jazz and an intermediate contemporary lyrical. The contemporary lyrical class exactly doubles in size even though I teach exactly the same class,” says Stanfield. With this, we can unfortunately conclude that at least in some students’ minds, jazz is passé. Perception is everything.
So, there are clear reasons why pure jazz dance is in such a precarious place: jazz came late to the concert dance world; it entered against the latent superiority of concert dance; the form incorporated an amalgamation of techniques/styles before concert jazz dance got off the ground running; and there was a shift away from thinking of jazz rhythm as an impetus for creating movement. All of this puts jazz dancing in a prickly place. Where are all the jazz companies? There are the few. The rest have conceded and joined the catch-all contemporary umbrella – a necessary step for now until we find our way, or at least a better word.
*Jerome Robbins, with a strong ballet background, was the anomaly as resident choreographer at New York City Ballet.
Katie Langan is a Professor of Dance and Chair of the Dance Department at Marymount Manhattan College.