5.2: A Brief History of Jazz Dance

Figure 5.1. Rose, J. (n.d.). The Old Plantation (WIkipedia, Ed.) [Review of The Old Plantation].

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The roots of jazz dance can be traced to both West Africa and to Europe. In the 1700s, large slave ships brought Africans to America, which included their customs, their music and their dance. Transplanted Africans managed to preserve elements of their heritage of expressive, communicative dance– a tradition shared by both West and Central Africans. But because of dance, drumming and religion’s contentious position on the plantations, dance became not a central feature of their ancestral and spiritual life, but rather a form of entertainment. On some plantations, the slaves were allowed Saturday night dances with the accompaniment of a banjo,tambourine or fiddle (no drums allowed). Clapping and shouting, calling out rhyme replaced the drum tempo. (From Worth slide presentation on Jazz Dance - check notation) Southern plantation owners were largely of European descent, and carried to America their own traditions of music and dance. Both the free population as well as the enslaved would take part in dancing and celebrations, each in their own unique way that represented their heritage and culture. As a result, plantations became a “melting pot” in which a unique movement was being borne out of a combination of West African dance and European movement. “European influences contributed the elegance, African influences the rhythmic propulsion.” (Stearns, 1994, p. xvi)

African dance contributed to the characteristics of jazz dance that we discuss today. From African dance, jazz dance developed the origin of movement in the body around the hips, that then moves outward to include the legs or torso. The energy of the movement is low to the ground. Jazz dance, as well as jazz music, employs the use of improvisation. African dance is improvisational in that it has the ability to be free from the regimented order of steps and rhythms that European style dance employed. As a result, polyrhythmic movements are very common. Explosive, propulsive movements at varying rhythms are reminiscent of African dance as well as jazz dance.

In contrast, Europeans had developed a very uplifted, rigid upper body style of dance, that was fashioned after their style of dress and their manners in the courts of Europe. European movement was very light, and seemed to emanate from the chest and upward, instead of from the pelvis and outward. European dance of the time relied on repetitive movements and an even meter of music.

As the fusion of African dance and European dance began, a brand new phenomenon known as Minstrelsy, emerged in the 1830s and was a most popular form of entertainment from approximately 1845 through 1900 (Stearns, 1994, p. 45). John Durang was a white performer who had knowledge of African American dances and as early as the late 1700s appeared in blackface on stage. He created a dance called The Hornpipe, and records of this early choreography indicate terminology was reminiscent of French ballet, and included terms like “shuffle” and “the pigeon wing” and “heel and toe haul” (Stearns, 1994, p. 39). Minstrels performed in black face to white audiences, satirizing the dances from plantations in a very stylized or choreographed fashion. Famous minstrels included Daddy “Jim Crow” Rice and Master Juba. One example of this is the Cakewalk dance, often performed as the finale of the minstrel show. By the mid-1800s, Minstrelsy, performed by African American dancers, or white dancers in black face, had taken the beginnings of what would be considered American jazz dance from folk dance to the professional stage.

Vaudeville shows became a well-known form of entertainment at the height of Minstrelsy, around the 1870s. Like a variety concert, Vaudeville shows included acrobatics, jugglers, musicians, comedians and more. A new form of music was used in Vaudeville acts, called Ragtime, that originated in New Orleans. This style of music utilized polyrhythmic and highly syncopated music, reminiscent of African origins, and was the precursor to American jazz music (Amin, 2014, p. 40). We will revisit Vaudeville in the chapter, with the exploration of American musical theatre origins.

Figure 5.2. Strobridge Lithographing Co. (n.d.). Primrose & West’s Big Minstrels. Our great champion cake walk, open to all comers [Review of Primrose & West’s Big Minstrels. Our great champion cake walk, open to all comers].

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Around 1900, the waning popularity of minstrel shows and vaudeville gave way to medicine shows and carnivals, and African American dancers were hired, not only to entertain through blackface to African American audiences, they also were given the opportunity to create their own form of entertainment that might bring in audiences. (Stearns, 1994, p. 63) New music and new dances seemed to work in tandem in the period between 1910 and 1920 as music seemed to gain in popularity if it was suitable for dancing in the ballrooms and perhaps included instructions within the song on how to dance it. Some titles included, Turkey Trot, Chicken Scratch, Kangaroo Dip, and Grizzly Bear. These dances, and this idea of songs becoming popular because you could dance to them, was the beginning of the social dance era, and what came next in the 1920s, including the rise of Broadway, was an explosion of truly American music and dance forging a deep and everlasting bond.

The 1920s in America became known as the Jazz Age, as both the music and dance forms were being created in tandem. Both forms relied heavily on improvisation. The Charleston became both a stage and social dance phenomenon and a breakout Broadway show that included this song and dance was Shuffle Along - theatre dance debuted! Jazz music and jazz dance became entertainment for everyone. For not only could one see professional Charleston dancers on stage in a musical, one could go to the ballroom and Charleston the night away with friends, and as the corsets were thrown out and the dresses were shorter, dancing was easier and certainly more freeing.

In the 1930s, a new kind of music and dance was sweeping the nation - Lindy Hop. Just as the Charleston relied upon improvisation, freedom, and a wild sense of abandonment, swing dance, and as swing music, relied upon syncopated rhythm and movement and, in dance, required coordination with a partner. Billy Siegenfeld, a former jazz and rock drummer; a vocal-rhythmic actor-dancer-singer; founder, artistic director, choreographer, and musical arranger of the theatre company Jump Rhythm® says this quite succinctly of the syncopation in jazz; “Syncopation in jazz commonly involved articulating unusually placed accents performed in one rhythm against a series of regularly repeating downbeats in a second rhythm. Because these accents are voiced at moments when the ear least expects to hear them, they convey the quality of surprise” (Siegenfeld, 2014, p. 19). Professional swing dancers made a name for themselves on Broadway and in the movies - jazz dance is now on film! Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers was a professional performing group of Savoy Ballroom swing dancers, started in 1935 by Herbert "Whitey" White. The group took on many different forms, with up to 12 different groups performing under this name or one of a number of different names used for the group over the years, including Whitey's Hopping Maniacs, Harlem Congaroo Dancers, and The Hot Chocolates. In addition to touring both nationally and internationally, the group appeared in a number of feature films and Broadway productions. Frankie Manning was one of the most famous Lindy Hoppers, and taught East Coast Lindy-Hop Swing until his death in April 2009 in New York City. (From Worth slide presentation on Jazz Dance - check notation)

Figure 5.3. Loew's Incorporated. (n.d.). Poster for the American theatrical run of the 1952 musical film Singin’ in the Rain. [Review of Poster for the American theatrical run of the 1952 musical film Singin’ in the Rain.].

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With the rise in popularity of the movies, many professional dancers made the jump from east to west coast. Many musicals were produced from Hollywood’s biggest production companies with substantial budgets for large dance scenes. Some inevitably returned, while others stayed for the comfortability of life in Southern California, working for the biggest companies and sizable paychecks.

Through subsequent decades, different social dances became the rage, both on stage and on screen, and in dance halls and high school gyms across America. Social life became a reflection of Broadway and the movies, just as the silver screen and the stage mirrored Americana. As the years progressed, jazz dance became more codified as choreographers and teachers emerged with different backgrounds and emphases. We will discuss notable jazz choreographers and dancers, and give nod to the history of American musical theatre through social and theatrical dances as well as after we lay the groundwork for jazz as a codified dance form.