A history of jazz dance
New documentary explores evolution of beloved art form — and its controversies
Like jazz music itself, the origins and evolution of jazz dance are complicated and, for that matter, inherently political. Khadifa Wong's fascinating documentary about the dance genre packs a gorgeous collection of new and archival film clips, vintage still photography, and a plethora of experts to tell the story and deliver details and expert opinions.
Choreographers, educators and many supple dancers fill out the film, uptempo rhythm jumping between the moves and grooves and talking heads bring a varied perspective on an area of dance art that doesn't always get its due. Jazz dance isn't just an art but a philosophy, we're told. It's about the way the dancer lives life, a physical expression of the inner individual and, as the label implies, improvisation is often part of that.
Tracing the roots from Africa through the slave trade to the “juba” social dances of plantation life and subtler European influences, we learn about the “cakewalk” to parody slave owners and white society before it evolved to styles like the Lindy Hop during the Harlem Renaissance and the so-called Swing Era of the 1930s. You'll hear how it was codified by “six founding fathers” as it came to influence ballet and contemporary dance and eventually incorporate Latin rhythms.
Or was it? A recurring theme underlines that you can't codify what lives on in the artist's mind
and body, and that many lesserknown influential names have been forgotten in the margins.
Those views inform a civil but potent dialectic that's quite controversial in dance companies in New York, Chicago and L.A., pictured herein. Also included, Paris and London, and even Toronto, and Calgary, with footage of Calgary's Decidedly Jazz Dance (DJD co-founder Vicki Adams Willis is also interviewed).
Uprooted is a must for dance fans or anyone intrigued by the history of moving arts.