5.4: Jazz Choreography Legends

Figure 5.6. Van Vechten, C. (1937). Portrait of Jack Cole [Review of Portrait of Jack Cole].

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When learning about the Jazz Choreography Legends, it is important to start at the beginning, with the “Father of Theatrical Jazz Dance” - Jack Cole (1921-1974). His influence can be traced throughout jazz dance and into the twenty first century, yet not many outside of the jazz dance world know who he is. Jack Cole began his dancing career with Denishawn, a modern dance company. He also studied an Eastern form of classical dance called Bharata Natyam. A varied artist, he also studied ballet, Lindy Hop (recall this phenomenon as a popular dance form established in the 1930s and credited as being a style of social dance) and acrobatics. A professional dancer first, he created dance for nightclubs, Broadway musicals, film and television, however, he is most recognized for his method of training theatrical jazz dancers. He termed his style as “urban folk dance” or “jazz-ethnic-ballet” and strove for perfection in his training and his choreography. One of his notable dancers was Marilyn Monroe. Cole had creative control over every movement the actress made, including her signature lip movements. He also had creative control over the camera for every take. “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is one of Cole’s signature works. Jack Cole has an impressive and diverse resume of theatrical shows and movies.

Jack Cole’s choreography and technical training methods are known for

• complex rhythmic patterns using jazz or “world music”
• precise isolations, influenced by Bharata Natyam
• intensity of eyes - stare
• low gravity center
• athletic strength
• use of different levels (floor work and high jumps)
• long, tall torso
• fluid arm movements emanating from the shoulders and back

Figure 5.7. Time Inc. (1945). Promotional still from the 1945 film Tonight and Every Night, starring Rita Hayworth. Jack Cole (choreographer) [Review of Promotional still from the 1945 film Tonight and Every Night, starring Rita Hayworth. Jack Cole (choreographer)].

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tonight-and-Every-Night-LIFE-1.jpg

While he may not be a household name for his choreography, Jack Cole directed his focus toward his dancers and to making them as brilliant as possible (Darkenwald, 2014, p. 82-87). In a 1948 New York Times article by John Martin, he says this of Cole and his dancers, “an intense kinetic entity rather than an individual. In this state of technical preparedness, which amounts almost to possession, he performs incredible movement, with a dynamism that transfers itself to the spectator as sheer motor enkindlement.” While most could not name Jack Cole as the “Father of Theatrical Dance”, the legendary dancer, choreographer, and teacher certainly set the tone for today’s discipline of Jazz Dance with his codified method of training.

Figure 5.8. Van Vechten, C. (1940). Portrait of Katherine Dunham [Review of Portrait of Katherine Dunham].

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Another early legendary jazz choreographer and instructor was the trailblazing female Katherine Dunham (1909-2006). Dunham’s style is frequently studied as both modern dance as well as jazz dance, as she truly developed her own unique style that recognized an anthropological approach to dance. Dunham opened her own modern dance company and dance school and her outreach to youth in the community was extraordinary. She felt that dance was a strong method of cultural communication and not only did her research include that of Caribbean and African cultures, it also included black dance traditions in the United States. These particular discoveries helped to lay the foundation for jazz dance and African American codified movement language (Corbett, 2014, p. 89).

Dunham’s early training began in 1928 and included both ballet and Bharata Natyam classical dance forms and Balinese dance traditions. She received her BA, MA, and PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago and sought to incorporate those studies in her choreography and training. She soon opened one of the first Negro ballet companies, Ballet Nègre and by 1938 had choreographed her first full length ballet. Dunham’s desire was “...to develop a technique that will be as important to the white man as to the Negro. To attain a status in the dance world that will give to the Negro dance- student the courage really to study, and a reason to do so. And to take our dance out of the burlesque – to make of it a more dignified art.” (Manning, S. (2001) ‘Modern dance, Negro dance and Katherine Dunham.’, inTextual Practice, 15(3), 487-505).

According to Saroya Corbett in Jazz Dance: A History of Roots and Branches, not only did Katherine Dunham seek to heighten the status of Negro dance, she also approached racism head on in her works and behind the scenes as well. “By Dunham’s own account, her audiences were nine-tenths white and one-tenth black. The visibility of her performed ethnographies exposed her majority white audiences to these cultural dance memories” (Corbett, 2014, p. 91). Some of Dunham’s works include Le Jazz Hot and Americana Suite. Through her choreography, audiences were exposed to dances such as The Shimmy, Black Bottom, and the Shorty George. Dunham would see these audiences across the world as her company toured North Africa, the United States and South America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and East Asia. Noted by Corbett in the same book, Dunham’s dance partner and company member, Vanoye Aikens recognizes that “...the Dunham Company performed jazz movement but was not a jazz dance company, the exposure [Dunham] gave to early jazz vocabulary contributed to a mainstream understanding and acceptance of jazz dance” (Corbett, 2014, p. 91).

Katherine Dunham’s choreography and technical training methods are known for

• isolated torso, undulations from a fluid spine, and use of polyrhythmic tempos
• use of turn out from the hips and “classical” lines, from studies in ballet and Bharata Natyam
• grounded movements including leaps and prances
• intense warm up exercises at the barre
• use of isolations
• choreography that confronts social or racial injustices

Figure 5.9. Heinrich, A. (1954). Katherine Dunham [Review of Katherine Dunham].

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While Dunham was not the first choreographer to utilize isolations, she is recognized as perhaps the first to study them, break them down for educational purposes, and then classify for codified technique and learning. The Dunham Technique is still widely studied across the world. Alvin Ailey School of Dance in New York City is a primary source for authentic Dunham trained dancers. In her later years, the governments of both Haiti and France designate Dunham as an officier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in their countries. She received both the President's Award of the National Council for Culture and Art, and, in 1983, received a Kennedy Center Honors award. Katherine Dunham truly transformed African American dance into a widely respected art form.

Figure 5.10. Escoyne, C. (2020, April). #TBT: Luigi Redefined Jazz Technique—But His Career Almost Never Happened.

Dance Magazine. https://www.dancemagazine.com/luigi-dance/#gsc.tab=0 [photo credit unknown]

Luigi (1925- 2008), born Eugene Louis Facciuto, was truly a self-made man who became a jazz dance legend. His early credits include singing, dancing, and acrobatics. However, after a massive car accident in early 1950, that injured, amongst other things, his skull, doctors feared Luigi would never be able to dance again. Luigi defied all odds and not only danced again, he performed in numerous musicals and choreographed and continued to teach up until his death in 2008.

After his life-altering accident, Luigi is quoted as saying an inner voice told him, “Never stop moving, kid. If you stop, you’re dead.” He began to create a series of his own exercises to rehabilitate his body, as he told himself to “always put the body in the right position” and “feel from the inside out” (Cohen, 2014, p. 114). Only two years after the accident, Luigi was seen by a talent scout and asked to audition for MGM's On The Town, starring Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. Miraculously, as he was still working out his paralysis, he got the job and started an eight year dance career in over forty films such as: An American in Paris, Annie Get Your Gun, Singin' in the Rain, The Band Wagon and White Christmas. Gene Kelly gifted Eugene Louis Facciuto with his forever after name, “Luigi ”.

In 1956, Luigi opened his own dance studio. Luigi clarified that his technique and methods were not created for jazz, but rather, for ballet, since that was the technique in which he was working as a dancer in Hollywood. He was unable to stand in the most difficult of ballet positions, fifth position, and execute any movement. He felt that the ballet barre (warm up movements in sequential order for ballet class) was not adequate preparation for center work, so he created his own “therapeutic” warm up. “My technique addresses how to stand up without the barre. It teaches the body how to support itself and how to use muscles evenly. The first motion is standing still. You stretch through every fiber of your being. You pull the shoulders down and that opens the back, and the back lifts the stomach. The buns straighten the legs and pull in the abdominals. By standing still you learn what it feels like to be in the right position, and you keep this feeling when you dance.” (Straus, 2007). Luigi’s warm ups then increase to include shoulder rolls, rolling through the spine, incorporating stomach muscles and preparing the body for more complicated movements. Positions of the head and shoulders were important to Luigi, as well as the feeling of fluidity, of movement never ending. He did not approve of stiff dancers. Luigi felt that by listening to one’s own body, one could find balance and therefore, could find the best way for one’s own body to manipulate the movement. He had three imperatives for his students as quoted from “Luigi’s Jazz Warm Up” (pg. 11):

1. To train the dancer to stand, balance, and move out into space.
2. To heal and protect the dancer’s body from injury.
3. To help the dancer dance to and with jazz music.

Luigi’s choreography and technical training methods are known for

• Stretching and strengthening therapeutically, to prepare for more complex movement
• Listening to your body and moving by what you are hearing
• Liquidity: the body never stops moving
• Épaulement: nuanced positioning of the head, shoulders, and neck
• Long and held torso, expanded chest, and arm placement similar to ballet

Figure 5.11. Brabben, G. (2020, July 3). The Importance of Learning Dance History – Acknowledging Our Roots: Jazz Dance (Part 2). Discoveries in Dance.

https://discoveriesindance.wordpress.com/2020/07/03/the-importance-of-learning-dance-historyacknowledging-our-roots-jazz-dance/ [photo credit unknown]

Luigi is an important figure in the history of theatrical jazz dance. The exercise routine he created for rehabilitation after his accident became the world's first complete warm up technique for learning jazz dance. This full and sustained body warm up is ideal to be performed by dancers backstage in a tight space before a performance. Luigi offered that he did “what Jack Cole should have done” by “develop[ing] and disseminat[ing] a technique” (Cohen, p 128). His legacy has influenced and sustained generations of dancers.

Figure 5.12. Fortepan. (1985). Matt Mattox amerikai balett-táncos a jazzóra vezetője, az általa vezetett órán [Review of Matt Mattox amerikai balett-táncos a jazzóra vezetője, az általa vezetett órán].

https://en.mandadb.hu/tetel/823518/M...ra_vezetoje_az _altala_vezetett_oran

Harold “Matt” Mattox (1931-2013), a disciple of the Father of Theatrical Jazz himself, Jack Cole, did not consider his choreography to be jazz, although his historic sixty-five year career as a dancer, dance maker and educator, was filled with all the characteristics of a jazz legend. His breakthrough role as one of the Pontipee brothers in the film version of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Mattox influenced Hollywood and Broadway, TV and opera, as well as the European concert dance community. A Mattox historian and perpetuator of Mattox’s choreography and technique, Bob Boross says Mattox was “a product of the finest concert and commercial dance training of the 1940s and 1950s…” and as a result, through his choreography and classes, Mattox became the one of the most influential teachers for concert and commercial dancers for generations (Guarino & Oliver, 2014, p. 119).

Matt Mattox’s early training consisted of ballet, tap and ballroom. Though his initial style was classical, including tenure as the artistic director of the New Jersey Ballet, his training with Jack Cole encouraged Mattox to create his own unique style. Mattox was a strict teacher and very disciplined with his students, and his students loved the approach. Though he had a strict nature, largely due to his classical training, including Eugene Loring for ballet, he preferred to call his style of dance “free” or freestyle. “The word ‘free’ is used because one is left to choose any kind of move he wishes, whether it is a tilt of the head, a flick of the wrist, a rotation of the pelvis, a Shuffle Off to Buffalo, a contraction of the body, the stance of a bullfighter, or a quick double turn and dop to the floor, or a modern fall to a completely prone position. The word ‘style’ is used because one is left to choose whatever style of movement he wants: East Indian, flamenco, early nineteen hundred contemporary, modern, old time vaudeville, folk dancing, ethnic, or a mixture of all of these” (Guarino & Oliver, 2024, p. 101).

Matt Mattox’s choreography and technical training methods are known for

• propulsive energy
• vocabulary that infuses a mix of ballet, modern, tap, and flamenco
• emphasis on clarity of energized execution
• movements are typically performed at a plié level, however feet are pointed and arms are lengthened, closer to the style of ballet
• Mattox technique class mimics a ballet class warm up in progression, however without a barre, as exercises are performed in the center and include polyrhythmic work and isolations of various parts of the body

Figure 5.13. Fortepan. (1985). Matt Mattox amerikai balett-táncos a jazzóra vezetője [Review of Matt Mattox amerikai balett-táncos a jazzóra vezetője].

ttps://en.mandadb.hu/tetel/823519/Ma...zzora_vezetoje

Matt Mattox worked in the United States until 1970, when he decided to gain a fresh perspective in Europe. He taught in London and by 1974, opened his company, JazzArt. He eventually moved to the south of France and opened École de Dance, where he continued to choreograph and teach until his death in 2013 (Collins, 2013). He leaves behind many performances on film, a vast array of concert, TV, and Broadway shows, and a legacy of skilled concert and theatrical dancers who continue to share his style of dance around the world.

Figure 5.14. Gus Giordano

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Gus Giordano (1923-2008) was an accomplished dancer, choreographer, instructor, director, author, and founder of the internationally acclaimed Jazz Dance World Congress. Former executive director of Giordano Dance Company, Michael McStraw said of Giordano, “His contributions to jazz dance are vast, and his role in transforming it into a credible American art form cannot be overemphasized” (Giordano, 2014, p. 103). August Thomas Giordano III was the fourth born and only the second to survive out of infancy. Family members introduced him to the arts and early on, Giordano studied ballet and theater dancing. Giordano joined the Marines during World War II and produced shows for the military. Upon his return to the United States, Giordano, desiring to continue his dance studies, found modern dance trailblazers Katherine Dunham, Hanya Holm and Alwin Nikolais in New York City. He innately understood that a strong technical foundation was imperative. “Flexibility, center placement, clean lines, multiple turns, leaps, and the ability to quickly transmit combinations from the brain to the body are the nuts-and-bolts of technique” (Giordano, 2014). Giordano found he was not successful on Broadway at first, so he decided to continue his dance training and complete his studies at the University of Missouri, where he received degrees in both Creative Writing and Dance. After graduating, he moved back to New York City, and within six months, he was on Broadway, dancing in huge dance productions such as On the Town, Guys and Dolls, and Paint and Your Wagon before he started landing roles in TV variety shows.

In 1953, Gus Giordano moved back to Chicago and opened his own dance studio. Shapiro notes in an article about Giordano Dance Chicago in Dance Magazine that at that time, “jazz was the stepchild of vaudeville and popular social dance, not taken as seriously as ballet and modern” (Shapiro, 2007). Through Giordano’s drive and tireless efforts, he began to change this world view on jazz dance. Fundamental to the Giordano technique is the emphasis on power and stability, emanating from the pelvis. He would later require ballet training of his dancers because of the appreciation of the clean, long lines that ballet dancers, and for which Gus himself, would continually strive. Intention of movement was also key for Giordano. He was in favor of quality with theatricality, but did not care for the overdone or flashy style of movement. “Keep it real” was Giordano’s philosophy.

Gus Giordano’s choreography and technical training methods are known for

• Strength and control coming from pelvis
• deep plié, complex rhythms
• isolations are important in each part of the body
• clean lines, long neck with elegance, unique shoulder placement
• attack in movement
• sense of theatricality, but not overdone to the point of flashiness

Figure 5.15. Gus Giordano

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Gus Giordano not only opened a school and founded a dance company, the jazz dance innovator authored books on his technique, the first of its kind. Anecdotally, Giordano may be known for his “jazz hands” - he is credited as inventing them; he is internationally recognized for the first dance company, Giordano Dance Chicago, devoted to jazz dance, and his organization of the Jazz Dance World Congress, a worldwide meeting of theatrical jazz dance instructors, dancers, and educators, created to ensure the elevated status of jazz dance globally; and to share methods and ideas from one nation to another. “His daughter, Nan, artistic director of Giordano Dance Chicago, said, ‘My father was king because he survived’... the perception that Gus was lucky, a survivor, was the impetus for creative risk-taking throughout his career” (McStraw, 2014, p. 104) Giordano will be forever celebrated for his inspiring generations of dancers to dig deeper into their dancing, to keep going, and to “Keep it real”.

Figure 5.16. eBay. (1953). Publicity photo of Bob Fosse and Viveca Lindfors {not shown in full] in the 1963 revival of the Broadway musical Pal Joey [Review of Publicity photo of Bob Fosse and Viveca Lindfors in the 1963 revival of the Broadway musical Pal Joey].

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...dfors_1963.jpg

Perhaps the most well-known of all choreographers to those in and outside of the dance realm is the multi award-winning dancer, choreographer, and director Robert Louis Fosse (1927-1987). While Bob Fosse never created a codified style of jazz dance, he certainly has signature movements that transcend the stories he told through dance. He is arguably the most medaled jazz choreographer in history, with eight Tony awards for choreography and one for direction, and four nominations and one Oscar win for his direction of Cabaret. He also won an Emmy award in 1972, the same year he also received an Oscar and a Tony, the single person in history to gain this achievement. While Fosse mostly choreographed for musicals and not dance companies, his work is included in the jazz dance portion of this chapter because he did have a signature style that has been studied, copied, manipulated and remanufactured in countless theatrical jazz dances since he exploded onto the stage in the 1960s.

Fosse’s early formal training, starting at the age of 13, included tap dance. He had some limited work as a chorus dancer on Broadway, however he did catch the eye of Jerome Robbins and director George Abbott when he appeared in the MGM musical Kiss Me Kate. Abbott directed and Fosse choreographed his first Broadway show, The Pajama Game, and subsequently earned his first Tony. He had little ballet training and his ability to turnout was supremely limited, which often informed his style of choreography, to play a bit pigeon-toed with the weight on the outside of the foot, instead of the ball of the foot, as in tap and ballet. Fosse tended to choreograph within his own ability, therefore his preference for bent knees, fingers spread apart, powerful isolations, and sharp movements were part of his signature style of choreography. He continued to choreograph shows, however he was gaining a reputation for creating very suggestive material. Some directors did not want that style of work in their production. It was then that Fosse decided he had better become a director as well, so that he could be fully in charge of the musical from all aspects (Biograpy.com Editors, 2007).

Fosse’s extraordinary eye for the bigger picture, the direction and production of the musical, made quite the combination. The groundbreaking musical Oklahoma!, with choreographer Agnes de Mille, ushered in the era of dance advancing the plot of the show (more on this in the musical theatre section of the chapter). Fosse found that he could seamlessly move from dialogue to music, singing, and dance by “heighten[ing] the emotions at the end [of the dialogue] so the dancing and singing would not clash. He accomplished this by first allowing the underscore of the music to introduce the dance as the players finished their dialogue, and then by raising the key in the music and changing tempo to dynamically build the number” (Mrozowski, 2014, p. 98).

Bob Fosse was a focused, driven and demanding director and choreographer and could spend hours on one small phrase of choreography until he felt it was right. His methods at invoking just the right movement or emotion he was wanting may have been unorthodox, and some of his dancers may have felt that they bordered on “cruel” but “they also claimed it forced them to look deeper into themselves, examine their motivations, become someone else by using their own resources” (Grubb, 1989, p. xx).

Bob Fosse’s choreography and training styles are known for

• turned in feet and hunched over shoulders
• the use of a prop, such as a hat or cane
• precision of movement and focus, down to the finger and eyebrow
• lower thrust and pelvic movement
• isolations of different body parts

Figure 5.17. (n.d.). Fosse and Verdon in rehearsal for New Girl in Town, a 1957 musical adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie [Review of Fosse and Verdon in rehearsal for New Girl in Town, a 1957 musical adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie].

https://wayback.archive-it.org/18689...hing-bob-fosse Image ID: psnypl_the_412

Bob Fosse was a fine dancer, a prolific jazz choreographer, and an accomplished director who has inspired generations of musical theatre dancers, as well as jazz, ballet, and tap dancers, just by being himself. Fosse stated that he “didn’t want to emulate anyone. Just wanted to do the things I was capable of doing—and have some fun doing them” (Escoyne, 2007).

Three jazz choreographers that deserve to be noted include Gene Kelly, Debbie Allen and Mia Michaels. Gene Kelly was born in Pittsburg in 1912. He was a dancer on Broadway first. He came to Hollywood to star in one film, however he ended up staying with MGM much longer because of all the creative spirits he found. He was most known for his masculine, athletic dance style, performed in work clothes, unlike a Fred Astaire in his top hat and tails. He was a dancer and choreographer to which the everyday person could relate.

Debbie Allen was born in 1950 and started dancing at the age of five. She is an actress, dancer, choreographer, singer-songwriter, director, producer, and former member of the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. Allen hit it big in 1980, starring in a Broadway revival of West Side Story. Her performance earned her a Tony nomination and landed her a role as a dance instructor in the movie, Fame (1980). The film evolved into a successful television spin-off in 1982, in which she co-starred. She won three Emmy awards for her choreography from that show. In 2001, Allen opened the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles, and she has also continued to make television appearances. Allen claims that “there is no jazz dance without ballet! And also without African dance. If you can do ballet and African dance, you can do anything. You also have stamina and you have grace. You can be fluid and lyrical, and you can be sharp and cutting” (Shrock, 2015).

Mia Michaels was born in 1966 to a family of dancers. She began choreographing at the age of 11. She is well known for tapping into tough emotions through movement. She has choreographed for many prolific artists such as Madonna, Ricky Martin, Gloria Estefan, Prince, Jon Secada and more. She also worked with Debbie Allen and Dreamworks on an AMC cable series, entitled, “Cool Women.” Michaels is the artistic director and choreographer of RAW (Reality at Work), a critically acclaimed New York dance company, begun in 1997. She has choreographed for commercials and in 2003, she was the director of choreography for Cirque du Soleil’s “Delirium.” Her international fame came in 2005, when she became a guest judge and contemporary choreographer for the “So You Think You Can Dance” competition television series.