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By Karen Springen
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Joffrey Ballet dancers typically wear tights, tutus and pointe shoes. But on a Chicago stage next week, they will be dressed in sweatshirts and sneakers for a sultry pas de deux by "West Side Story" choreographer Jerome Robbins. You'd be forgiven for assuming that the street clothes are beneath ballet dancers. Far from it: along with 14 other dance companies from around the world, the Joffrey will perform at the Jazz Dance World Congress Aug. 3-6.
Look for dancers donning sneakers, jazz shoes, even nothing at all on their feet, as 800 students and performers spend the days taking classes and their nights watching a choreography competition and performances by different companies. Masashi Action Machine from Japan will combine jazz with martial arts moves. Other groups will infuse their shows with elements from African tribal dance, hip-hop and tap. "This is really the Christmas for jazz dancers," says Lisa Arnett of Dance Spirit magazine.
It's been the case virtually every August since 1990, when Chicago jazz dance legend Gus Giordano started the World Congress. Though the annual event has been held in places like Japan, Mexico, Germany and Costa Rica, its roots are in Chicago--the "nexus of concert jazz companies," says Arnett. Dancers from Russia, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Brazil, Mexico, Finland and Sweden will descend on the city, bringing their own moves and picking up a few new ones to take back to their parts of the world. "It is a cultural enrichment for my company," says choreographer Vittorio Biagi, who is bringing his Danza Prospettiva company from Rome. "I love the American audience."
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And the love, believe it or not, is apparently reciprocated: dancers on popular reality-TV competition shows like ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" and Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance" infuse their routines with jazz moves. You can see it on Broadway ("Movin' Out") and on the streets (as documented in David LaChappelle's "Rize"). It can include karate kicks, cartwheels, pole vaulting, even hanging from bungee cords. If that all sounds a little random, that's because it is. Jazz dance is "very difficult to define," says Tom Ralabate, director of dance at the State University of New York, Buffalo. "You have to experience it. You have to be there." (Louis Armstrong, when asked to define jazz music, famously said, "Man, if you gotta ask, you'll never know.")
As audiences at the World Congress will learn, jazz dance is about breaking the rules. "Jazz breathes more than classical ballet," says Mia Michaels, a judge on Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance," who choreographed Celine Dion's 54-dancer Las Vegas show. "It's much more free." And much more athletic. "Jazz sometimes gets a bad rap for being not as difficult as ballet, and modern dance sometimes gets the label as being more intellectual," says Sara Bibik of the River North Chicago Dance Company.
In fact, jazz dancers typically train in ballet. "It's just like a musician. A jazz musician needs to know how to play classically before [he] can break all the rules," says Michael Williams, a dance professor at the University of Arizona and chair of the jury for the World Congress's choreography competition. Jazz dancers need to know the movement structure of ballet--and then "make it less vertical and much more horizontal," says Williams. Jazz dance isolates body parts--shoulders going in one direction, the head in another, the pelvis in yet another. In other words, "what Elvis did," says Northwestern University dance teacher Laura Wade.
Granted, as a movement, jazz dance may have reached its apotheosis decades ago with Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire and choreographers like Robbins, Jack Cole ("Gentlemen Prefer Blondes"), Bob Fosse ("Sweet Charity," "All That Jazz" and "Chicago") and Michael Bennett ("A Chorus Line"). But today even Britney Spears and her backup dancers include a "jazz vein," says Giordano. (Although, "it's redundant," she says. "There's no versatility. [True] jazz has huge versatility and huge depth.")
Still, purists say jazz dance should be performed to music that includes "swing," repeated riffs and syncopation (emphasizing the weak second and fourth beats instead of a strong downbeat). "Some people will say it can only be to jazz music, 1900 to 1945, and it has to be a certain rhythm or syncopation," says Bibik. But few people today feel bound by those rules. "Jazz is a melting pot," says Joe Tremaine, who trained Paula Abdul and serves as a master teacher at the World Congress every year. "It's a great chance for me to get a thumbnail overview of what's going on in the world."
Anyone who can't get that overview from the World Congress can always flip on the new dance TV shows--or head to any of the 125 or so other dance festivals, which usually include at least a small jazz-dance component, held around the country each year (usually during the summer, when students are out of school and many dance companies are on break). There's Jacob's Pillow in Becket, Mass., the American Dance Festival in Durham, N.C., and the St. Louis Tap Festival, to name a few.
But for true jazz immersion, head to the World Congress. "The diversity that's going to be on that stage for the show is going to be great," says Whitney Moncrief. She should know: her company, Hubbard Street 2, will perform "Dirti Rok," a hip-hop-style piece, danced to African-influenced music and including martial arts and flips. Makes ballet sound, well, banal.
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