Jazz Blog - 1st Year 19/20 School Year
Throughout this first year, we have learnt and performed numerous jazz routines which have been influenced by the following practitioners: Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse and Jack Cole.
Jerome Robbins (1918-1998) was a "master of both ballet and musical choreography" (R.Thomas, 2014) and was even known for potentially being Balanchine's rival for the America's greatest 20th-century choreographer title. Robbins as a starting point created ballets including a range of styles such as comic, abstract, dramatic, modern as well as keeping the traditional aspect and classical. An example of this is seen in one of his ballets 'The Concert' created in 1956 where he infused classical ballet technique and musical theatre as the dancers execute a ballet piece however there are some moments where one or two dancers purposely do the wrong step or goes the wrong way which gives off the musical theatre aspect and creates humor.
A second characteristic that makes his work unique is that he introduced an original American style to European art form. "Why can't we dance about American subjects?" (R.Thomas,2014). With this, it helped promote dance in musical theatre "from pure entertainment to unconnected to the story into a vehicle for defining character and advancing the story" (C.Davies, 2020).
A final and key quality to his choreographies is having a central theme that flows through his work. Robbins main focus was on the nature of communities for example: villages, tribes, gangs, loose urban societies and intimate groups of friends. One of his most popular pieces 'West Side Story' created in 1957, clearly displays this theme as the two lovers in this work are entangled in a battle between there Puerto Rican and white gangs.
The following qualities above are seen in our Billie Eilish Routine.
An example of the first aspect of Robbin's choreography is including his range of styles. The movement vocabulary in this specific routine is extremely dramatic with powerful dynamics and expansive movements such as a stag leap and a star jump facing the floor. As well as dramatic moments, there is a section that is seen quite abstract at the very beginning where we execute four poses repeatedly.
An example of the second quality is seen throughout the whole routine where we are portraying a character and telling a story with our performance quality, dynamics and facial expressions. A key section where this is clearly displayed is the start of the routine where we do nothing but stand still in a wide parallel second, arms strong and pinned by the sides of hips and staring to the front which creates an intense atmosphere which helps create the idea of a story behind it.
The final example of the third quality is heard in the music as well as the routine. The song is called 'Bad Guy' which could link to Robbin's central theme on the nature of communities but in the sense of gangs perhaps that is known for being intense and aggressive which relates to the movement style and quality to this routine.
Bob Fosse (1927-1987) was an American dancer, director and choreographer transformed musicals with his clear-cut style of dance and incorporate his use of props and his famous known moves.
One aspect that makes Fosse's choreography unique is how he staged dancer numbers that were greatly stylised. 'Sweet Charity' (1969) included the dances 'Big Spender' and 'Rich Mans Frug' which are iconic Fosse dances. These numbers included his notable choreography movements such as: angular, machine like motion and jazzy poses.
A second unique characteristic to Fosse's choreography is that he made small movements a big deal. In 'How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying' (1961), he reestablished the choreography to make it more pedestrian like. "Instead of using traditional dance steps, he built the song “Coffee Break” into a number about addiction and withdrawal by choreographing the actors’ eyes and fingers" (M.Brady ,2019).
A third and final quality of Fosse's choreography is that his own dancers contributed to his choreography and the individual strengths from that was featured. When creating his final work 'Big Deal' (1986), he depended on the choreographic impulses of his dancers to evolve the steps. “Three days later he’d come back and say, ‘Show me what you got,’ and each one of us, as individuals, put choreography into the number.” (M.Brady, 2019)
These following qualities are shown in our 'Wild Party - Juggernaut' Routine.
An example of the first quality is clearly evident when we perform the section following the lyrics "one foot, one hand..." as we follow the actions directly executing the angular and jazzy style poses.
An example of the second quality is demonstrated at the very end of the routine where we are all in a triangle formation and with the last few counts of the music, we perform small head movements while keeping the rest of our body still. This makes the small head movements in unison come off quite powerful.
The final quality that is displayed in our routine is the involvement and contribution from us as the dancers. This only happens at the beginning when the music starts and improvise coming on stage in the character and interacting with each other.
Jack Cole (1911-1974) "will always be remembered as the prime innovator of theatrical jazz dance" (C.Davies, 2019).
From his East Indian background, Cole adopted a refined use of isolation specifically the shoulders, neck, hips and ribs. Since this, isolation has been vastly used throughout jazz dance and beginners will always start with this technique.
A second quality that is unique to Cole's choreography is how "he invented the idiom of American show dancing known as "Theatrical Jazz Dance""(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Cole_(choreographer)#Career, 2020).
He evolved a mode of jazz-ethnic-ballet which has influenced the dance industry today in musicals, television commercials, films and music videos.
A final key quality of his choreography was the performance quality of his own dancers as "they were known for their aggressive, strong and powerful"style. (C.Davies, 2020). This caught a lot of the directors attention and one in particular called them warriors due to their intensity of their performance.
The qualities mentioned above can be shown in our Jason Derulo routine.
An example of the first attribute can be is visible throughout the whole piece as we execute strong an and hard hitting isolation with our upper body especially in the first section where we perform isolation with our ribs stepping forwards. The second characteristic is the overall style of the dance in general. This specific genre of dance, commercial, has an area of influence from Cole's style with his use of angled placements, low centre of gravity and deep plies for example.
An example of third key quality is displayed for the duration of the routine as each and every movement we present, we produce a powerful and aggressive style and performance level which is fully influenced by Cole's style.
References:
* https://www.roh.org.uk/news/jerome-robbins-a-master-of-both-ballet-and-musical-choreography
*https://missdavisbtuk.blogspot.com/2020/02/1st-year-jerome-robbins.html
*https://missdavisbtuk.blogspot.com/2020/02/1st-year-bob-fosse.html
*https://www.playbill.com/article/5-ways-bob-fosse-changed-broadway-ensembles-forever
*https://missdavisbtuk.blogspot.com/2020/02/1st-year-jack-cole.html
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Cole_(choreographer)#Career
Jerome Robbins (1918-1998) was a "master of both ballet and musical choreography" (R.Thomas, 2014) and was even known for potentially being Balanchine's rival for the America's greatest 20th-century choreographer title. Robbins as a starting point created ballets including a range of styles such as comic, abstract, dramatic, modern as well as keeping the traditional aspect and classical. An example of this is seen in one of his ballets 'The Concert' created in 1956 where he infused classical ballet technique and musical theatre as the dancers execute a ballet piece however there are some moments where one or two dancers purposely do the wrong step or goes the wrong way which gives off the musical theatre aspect and creates humor.
A second characteristic that makes his work unique is that he introduced an original American style to European art form. "Why can't we dance about American subjects?" (R.Thomas,2014). With this, it helped promote dance in musical theatre "from pure entertainment to unconnected to the story into a vehicle for defining character and advancing the story" (C.Davies, 2020).
A final and key quality to his choreographies is having a central theme that flows through his work. Robbins main focus was on the nature of communities for example: villages, tribes, gangs, loose urban societies and intimate groups of friends. One of his most popular pieces 'West Side Story' created in 1957, clearly displays this theme as the two lovers in this work are entangled in a battle between there Puerto Rican and white gangs.
The following qualities above are seen in our Billie Eilish Routine.
An example of the first aspect of Robbin's choreography is including his range of styles. The movement vocabulary in this specific routine is extremely dramatic with powerful dynamics and expansive movements such as a stag leap and a star jump facing the floor. As well as dramatic moments, there is a section that is seen quite abstract at the very beginning where we execute four poses repeatedly.
An example of the second quality is seen throughout the whole routine where we are portraying a character and telling a story with our performance quality, dynamics and facial expressions. A key section where this is clearly displayed is the start of the routine where we do nothing but stand still in a wide parallel second, arms strong and pinned by the sides of hips and staring to the front which creates an intense atmosphere which helps create the idea of a story behind it.
The final example of the third quality is heard in the music as well as the routine. The song is called 'Bad Guy' which could link to Robbin's central theme on the nature of communities but in the sense of gangs perhaps that is known for being intense and aggressive which relates to the movement style and quality to this routine.
Bob Fosse (1927-1987) was an American dancer, director and choreographer transformed musicals with his clear-cut style of dance and incorporate his use of props and his famous known moves.
One aspect that makes Fosse's choreography unique is how he staged dancer numbers that were greatly stylised. 'Sweet Charity' (1969) included the dances 'Big Spender' and 'Rich Mans Frug' which are iconic Fosse dances. These numbers included his notable choreography movements such as: angular, machine like motion and jazzy poses.
A second unique characteristic to Fosse's choreography is that he made small movements a big deal. In 'How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying' (1961), he reestablished the choreography to make it more pedestrian like. "Instead of using traditional dance steps, he built the song “Coffee Break” into a number about addiction and withdrawal by choreographing the actors’ eyes and fingers" (M.Brady ,2019).
A third and final quality of Fosse's choreography is that his own dancers contributed to his choreography and the individual strengths from that was featured. When creating his final work 'Big Deal' (1986), he depended on the choreographic impulses of his dancers to evolve the steps. “Three days later he’d come back and say, ‘Show me what you got,’ and each one of us, as individuals, put choreography into the number.” (M.Brady, 2019)
These following qualities are shown in our 'Wild Party - Juggernaut' Routine.
An example of the first quality is clearly evident when we perform the section following the lyrics "one foot, one hand..." as we follow the actions directly executing the angular and jazzy style poses.
An example of the second quality is demonstrated at the very end of the routine where we are all in a triangle formation and with the last few counts of the music, we perform small head movements while keeping the rest of our body still. This makes the small head movements in unison come off quite powerful.
The final quality that is displayed in our routine is the involvement and contribution from us as the dancers. This only happens at the beginning when the music starts and improvise coming on stage in the character and interacting with each other.
Jack Cole (1911-1974) "will always be remembered as the prime innovator of theatrical jazz dance" (C.Davies, 2019).
From his East Indian background, Cole adopted a refined use of isolation specifically the shoulders, neck, hips and ribs. Since this, isolation has been vastly used throughout jazz dance and beginners will always start with this technique.
A second quality that is unique to Cole's choreography is how "he invented the idiom of American show dancing known as "Theatrical Jazz Dance""(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Cole_(choreographer)#Career, 2020).
He evolved a mode of jazz-ethnic-ballet which has influenced the dance industry today in musicals, television commercials, films and music videos.
A final key quality of his choreography was the performance quality of his own dancers as "they were known for their aggressive, strong and powerful"style. (C.Davies, 2020). This caught a lot of the directors attention and one in particular called them warriors due to their intensity of their performance.
The qualities mentioned above can be shown in our Jason Derulo routine.
An example of the first attribute can be is visible throughout the whole piece as we execute strong an and hard hitting isolation with our upper body especially in the first section where we perform isolation with our ribs stepping forwards. The second characteristic is the overall style of the dance in general. This specific genre of dance, commercial, has an area of influence from Cole's style with his use of angled placements, low centre of gravity and deep plies for example.
An example of third key quality is displayed for the duration of the routine as each and every movement we present, we produce a powerful and aggressive style and performance level which is fully influenced by Cole's style.
References:
* https://www.roh.org.uk/news/jerome-robbins-a-master-of-both-ballet-and-musical-choreography
*https://missdavisbtuk.blogspot.com/2020/02/1st-year-jerome-robbins.html
*https://missdavisbtuk.blogspot.com/2020/02/1st-year-bob-fosse.html
*https://www.playbill.com/article/5-ways-bob-fosse-changed-broadway-ensembles-forever
*https://missdavisbtuk.blogspot.com/2020/02/1st-year-jack-cole.html
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Cole_(choreographer)#Career
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